I wonder, like Humble2Humble, Robin, and many, many others, “Are sexual assaults of children too horrible to report?” What make people turn their heads away from witnessing a sexual crime being committed? Why do people close their eyes to sexual assaults? What makes people mute when children are sexually assaulted? Why don’t people want to believe what they see? What emotions and defense mechanisms activates in people if a sexual crime is committed by a respected, powerful authority figure in society ? Is it less difficult to report a sexual crime when committed by someone who is not in a power position?

The Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence is a nonprofit independent scientific organization composed of respected scientists, clinicians, educators, legal scholars, and public policy analysts, committed to providing professionals and lay persons with the latest scientific information on issues that may affect the public’s health and safety. They also seek to correct the misuse of psychological science to serve vested interests or justify victimizing vulnerable populations – especially abused and neglected children. On their website, The Leadership Council have made an analysis on:

Eight Common Myths About Child Sexual Abuse 

• Normal-appearing, well educated middle-class people don’t molest children.
• People are too quick to believe an abuser is guilty, even if there is no supporting evidence.
• Child molesters molest indiscriminately.
• Children who are being abused would immediately tell their parents.
• Children who are being abused will show physical evidence of abuse.
• Hundreds of innocent men and women have been falsely accused and sent to prison for molesting children.
• If asked about abuse, children tend to exaggerate and are prone to making false accusations.
• By using repeated interviews, therapists or police can easily implant false memories and cause false accusations among children of any age.

As a psychotherapist, I work with adults who were sexually abused as children. Many come to therapy decades after the abuse has ended. A significant part of all the men and women I have had the privilege to help through their journey toward healing never told anyone about the abuse prior to coming to therapy. Their abusers could be parents, grand-parents, aunts or uncles, siblings, cousins, baby-sitters, teachers, sports coaches, friends of the family etc. Sexual abuse of children is imbedded in secrecy and denial. The secrecy is imposed by the perpetrator through a range of intimidations, and is often so deeply internalized, that the child can grow far into adulthood with the secret of the violations intact.

When calculated human evil, sometimes in dressed in the costume of a loving, caring other,  a person who loves children, or a trusted other is sexually assaulting a child, a “dissociated” tsunami hits their immature mind. If left relationally unprocessed, it leaves a fearful shadow that makes it difficult for the abused child to adaptively deal with emotions in connection to others. This traumatic betrayal also weakens the child’s ability to trust, not only others, but also their experience.

Relational trauma, especially when executed by a trusted other, and experienced during early development, has the power to destroy everything and everyone in its immediate way, just like a tsunami. Trauma overwhelms. For a child, it is not possible to comprehend how a person they trust are loving and caring sometimes, and at other times cause them tremendous physical and emotional pain. The contradictions take such dimensions, that the ability to contain and process this ultimate betrayal becomes impossible, and while searching for ways to deal with this unspeakable experience, the child separates itself from the horrifying and painful parts of the experience in order to escape an aversive reality.

Needless to say, no child should have to experience sexual abuse. No child should have to question if it was their fault that the abuse happened. A child is never responsible for the evil and criminal acts of an adult. Never!

In the introduction to her book, Pema Chödrön says: “…May it encourage you to settle down with your life and take these teachings on honesty, kindness, and bravery to your heart If your life is chaotic and stressful, there’s plenty of advise here for you. If you’re in transition, suffering from loss, or just fundamentally restless, these teachings are tailor made. The main point is that we all need to be reminded and encouraged to relax with whatever arises and bring whatever we encounter to the path…”

To relax with whatever arises, inside of us and around us may feel utterly difficult, maybe even impossible, when our whole being, from the top down, is occupied by fear. We feel the fear, and we just want to run. And as we run away from fear – which we believe is our enemy – we may seek shelter in the company of alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, shopping, or sex, hoping and believing that the fear will go away, never to return. We may isolate, cutting ourselves off from family, friends, and social gatherings in general, attempting to make that, which is scary, go away. Believing that now, we are safe from ever feeling fear again. Believing that fear is our enemy, “someone” to avoid at all costs. To cover up our fear, we may harden ourselves into building protective walls around our vulnerability, and come to believe that frustration, and anger are the only emotions that are safe for us to show. Or, fear overwhelms us to a point where we believe, that if we are compliant, fear will leave us alone.

I don’t know what you were told about fear, but I do know that during my developmental years, I learned a lot about how to run from fear, but no one ever told me to move closer, to just be there, and to become familiar with fear. As Pema Chödrön says, “…the advise we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away. We don’t need that kind of encouragement, because dissociating from fear is what we do naturally. We habitually spin off and freak out when there’s even the merest hint of fear. We feel it coming and we check out…”

I am still learning and practicing to have an intimate relationship with fear, and I’ve come to believe that having an understanding, respect, and compassion for how our emotions have the power to run us around in circles, can help us to believe in our basic goodness, and in having the capacity to stop harming ourselves in different kind of ways. The present moment has a lot to teach us, especially when we quiet down the shatter, and allowing our minds to be fully present. The following story from Pema’s book  has been utterly helpful, not only to me, but also to many of my clients during their healing journy:

“…Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, “May I have the permission to go into battle with you?” Fear said, “Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission.” Then the warrior said, “How can I defeat you?” Fear replied, “My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.” In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear…”

On BEDA’s website, we can read the following story:

…“Home should have been a safe place.

I was a little kid, always on guard in my own house with my own family, made to feel uncomfortable in my own skin…just waiting. The message was loud and clear. I was smart, sweet, well behaved. I had a “very pretty face”, blond curls, bright blue eyes. But “What a shame…”. I was too fat. Loud and clear and heart breaking; I was not acceptable as I was.

This weight stigma was ever present. It came from my Mom, who had her own body issues, and from an unhappy older brother who clearly saw me as an interloper in his world. He seemed compelled to carry his anger and his bullying into our school. He’d yell, “Hi Tubs”, whenever our classes passed in the hallways as if to distance himself from this shamefully fat little girl to whom he was unfortunately related. By junior and senior high school, he’d gotten all of his friends in school, at home, even at summer camp, to call me “Ray”, after Ray Nitschke, a middle linebacker for the Green Bay Packers.

The message was also delivered by my mother’s mother, who regularly baked cakes and cookies to express her love for her family, then sternly stated, in front of everyone that I was only to eat “one”. My grandfather was equally direct. Over and over again, publically, he offered to pay me one dollar for every pound I could lose.

For me, weight stigma started at home. I never felt safe. Is there any wonder why I was vulnerable to developing a binge eating disorder?…”

As a therapist, I meet some of these children as adults! Their stories vary, but the common theme is the hurt, and the pain, and the lack of self-acceptance. They come to therapy to get help with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, or lack of self-worth. They describe how they hate their bodies. They reveal how boyfriends have broken up with them because of their weight. They reveal eating secretly at night, because eating has become closely connected to shame. They pour out a litany of self-degrading comments. Some have developed a Binge Eating Disorder, or another kind of eating disorder. Developmental trauma histories, and attachment deficits, or acute stress are intimately connected to eating disorders.

Disordered eating can become a “secret internal prison” for dealing with emotional stress, painful memories (past or present), and to cope with not only one’s own internal judge, but also the echos of external prosecutors.  No wonder, that many feel that the forces driving their disordered eating are too strong, too big to overcome!

However, with help and support from a trusted other, we can “bring to life” our inner resources, and find safe places within where we have access to all the skills we need to care for and about our selves, to identify stressors and adaptively deal with them, to balance strong emotions, to manage the effects of feelings that hurts, and to “listen” to our bodies.

If you want to share your experience from how you struggle with, or have overcome an eating disorder, I will read and listen with interest. I also believe that your story will help others.

Warmly,

MarieLouise Dodson, MA, LMHC

One day, our head nurse came into my office to consult about a new patient. He was a man in his early 40′s. A “walk-in,” primarily seeking help with his depression. He admittedly drank on occasion, but “not much.” Did I have time to see him?

The man stepping into my office a few minutes later was proper, oriented, coherent, well dressed, and seemingly sober. After a 20 minutes conversation about his alcohol habits, it had became evident that he consumed way more alcohol than “just a little.” When, on my way to reach for some testing instruments, I passed his chair, I noticed a scent of what I believed to be alcohol, and I asked him if he had been drinking anything prior to coming to the clinic. He immediately said, “Yes, I had a couple beers in the morning.”

I explained that it might be of interest to find out if there’s still some alcohol left in his body, even if several hours had passed since he drank. He agreed. I went to the nurse’s station to get a breathalyzer to measure his blood-alcohol level, and  asked him to breathe into the instrument. Waiting for the result, the meter kept going up and up, and I concluded something must have gone wrong with the test. I called the nurse and asked if she had the time to bring me another breathalyzer, and with the new instrument in my hand, I asked the patient to re-take the test. History repeated itself – the first test result, 0.43 BAC , came up again.

With a BAC level of 0.43, the patient standing in front of me should have been dead! Why wasn’t he? Two major factors “saved him!”

He had progressively developed a very high tolerance for alcohol which, in simple terms was evident through his demeanor: he appeared to be sober, he walked, talked, and behaved as if he was not under the influence of any mood altering substance. In other words, my patient’s body system had, through drinking on a regular basis, for a long period of time, learned to tolerate huge amounts of alcohol – to the point of shaking hands with death.

In case any of my readers wonder if my patient was driving his car to the clinic, the answer is: Yes, he did!

When he left the clinic, he had agreed to be transported to the hospitals detox unit.He also willingly left the keys to his car at the nurse’s station.

Did you know that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month?

This year, as every year for the past two decades, I have scheduled my yearly mammogram this month. Since my appointment is coming up any day, I wanted to take the opportunity to encourage other women to take this preventive measure to care for your health.

Seattle Care Alliance, Fred Hutchinson’s Cancer Research Center, Group Health, UW Medicine, and Seattle Children’s Hospital’s Make A Mammogram Promise is honoring the Breast Cancer Awareness Month by challenging us to make a promise to ourselves to do something good for our future health.

Everyday during the month of October someone will win the Daily Drawing, and it could be you! All you have to do to enter is make a Mammogram Promise. Plus every promise you collect from friends and family means another enter into the Daily Drawing and more chances to win the great prizes listed below! See the Official Rules for more information about each prize. On The Promise Blog you can read about the prize which the winner of the day will receive.

All you have to do is to enter your email address … and Make A Promise!

MarieLouise Dodson, MA, LMHC

When we experience any kind of traumatic event, depending on its severity, our brain activates our necessary internal defenses ~ fight, flight, or freeze responses ~ to protect the wounds inflicted upon us as a means for survival. Our attempts to numb the physical, emotional, and intellectual responses to whatever terrifying experience we have had are natural to our very being.

The degree of self-protection is equal to the severity of the wound itself. However, the protective shields we utilized when the trauma happened can, over time, transform into destructive coping skills, which are keeping us trapped in painful and harmful emotional, cognitive, somatic, and behavioral patterns, instead of helping us to heal the trauma and free us from the unwanted internal imprisonment.

Not uncommonly, one moment can become “frozen in time,” and remembering what happened can feel as bad as it did when the event occurred, because the images, thoughts, sounds, smells, and feelings haven’t changed. Memories like that have a lasting negative effect that may interfere with the way we see ourselves, the world and the way we relate to other people.

Although it is not exactly known how any form of psychotherapy works neuro-biologically, in the brain, we know that when we experience a trauma, our brain cannot process information as it usually does. Remembering what happened can feel as bad as it did going through it the first time, because the images, sounds, smells, and feelings haven’t changed. The “trauma-memory-networks” seem to “cut off” all communication with “adaptive-information-networks.” Further, the trauma-memory can get triggered by any kind of related or associated experience, and has the potential to make you feel as powerless or upset as you did when the original trauma happened. It’s like “the bridge” between the only island and the mainland is torn down, and you feel stuck at a place from which there is “no escape.”

EMDR (or other forms of bi-lateral stimulation), appears to “build the necessary bridge” between the right hemisphere of the brain where the trauma memory is stored, over to the left hemisphere, which stores important thoughts and awareness needed to relieve the distress. It is like pieces of a puzzle coming together into a complete picture. You still remember what happened, but it is less upsetting, it is “just a memory.”

David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D., after having learned about EMDR during a lecture by Francine Shapiro, PhD, the originator of EMDR, he became curious about this method of therapy. He  took the EMDR Institutes’  basic training, and started to use it right away in his practice. “…He said the following: It worked from the first day and I was hooked. That’s the story. I think it happens to everybody. It is surprising to see something work so well. “ Luber, M. (2011). In celebration of: David Servan-Schreiber. EMDRIANewsletter, September 2011, 12-15.

In his first book, “The Instinct to Heal,” David Servan-Schreiber, wrote:” … The thrust of EMDR is to evoke the traumatic memory in all of its components-visual, emotional, cognitive, and, most of all, physical (the echo of the memory in the body), and to then ask the patient to simply follow the hand of the therapist moving rapidly back and forth in front of his or her face in order to induce the appropriate eye movements. This process then stimulates the inborn “adaptive information-processing system” that has not been successful in metabolizing the dysfunctional memory by itself.” (p. 81, Electronic book version)

A couple days before Christmas, I took a picture of the sunset from the window of my son’s house in Sweden, and with this peaceful view of how the end of one day is preparing to meet the beginning of a new, I want to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR.