Taking Stock: Recognizing the Damage of Abuse

“Why”, you ask.

It’s because trauma from abuse and terror leaves a permanent trace on a survivor. It may not be an obvious sign like a bruise a wound or even a burn but it’s there as a silent reminder that things happened. Awful things, unspeakable things, terrifying things happened and those events will live with us forever.

You cannot just cover up a trauma with a band-aid and say that you are ”fixed” now because “you’ve dealt with everything”. Healing from trauma takes years especially if that trauma happened over many years in your childhood. In my case, my entire childhood. One never forgets, but life goes on, and with time and living in a safe place you start to heal. You start feeling better in the right environment surrounded by the right people. Healing does happen and with the right support, you feel better as you come to terms with everything that happened to you.

As you are healing and feeling stronger about living free without the shackles of abuse, there are always little reminders. We call them triggers. Abuse doesn’t just go away on its own, no matter how much healing you have done. There will always be triggers following you like an invisible shadow, but you learn to tackle those as they arise. The shadows are there but not overwhelming and intrusive all the time. I have written about triggers in my previous blogs for the foundation. I see triggers as bad because of the pain they invoke in a life that has gone beyond trauma and yet there comes a trigger that gets in the way of that newfound happiness. Triggers just happen, especially if you have a lot of traumas and there is nothing you can do but stop and focus, facing them head-on. Until you do, those triggers will keep coming until you cannot ignore them any longer. Triggers are good in the way that they make you face the trauma and move on from them. Things that used to trigger me, still do but don’t hurt like they did before I acknowledged and dealt with them. Those triggers serve to only remind me that the hurt happened, but I’ve moved on and I am in a good place.

Have you come across this in your healing? Do your triggers feel less painful?

I had a conversation with one of my childhood friends a while back and I am still processing what she told me. She had been one of the first readers of my memoir “The Sex-Offender’s Daughter” at the time it was published last year. Her words to me about how she saw me made me realize the true damage of abuse. She said to me that she had been thinking back to our childhood and remembered us playing together as kids and working in class in elementary school. She spotted my body was always riddled with tiny purple bruises and some bigger ones, as we got changed for gym class. She had asked me about them several times but never got a proper reply. She got answers from me like; “I was clumsy”, “I fell from climbing a tree”, “I walked into a door”, “I fell down the stairs” etc. I had forgotten all of this and it’s still floating in my mind months after our conversation. Learning how my best friend saw me as we grew up together was a big catalyst for me to remember. Those bruises were from being restrained and gang raped but at the time my brain couldn’t process that.

The adults around me were all gaslighting me into thinking and twisting the truth as if it was my fault and I was brain-damaged. I lied so much when I was little that sometimes I didn’t know what the truth was, but my body was clear proof of the abuse. My friend noticed that I couldn’t sit still and sat in a different way from the other kids with my legs spread wide apart. The truth was that at the time, I had difficulties sitting down from the pain and my hips were damaged from having my legs spread wide apart so much that I couldn’t keep my legs together. I still can’t sit properly to this day and I know why my legs will not cooperate.  The damage is still prevalent even now, decades later and that is what people can see and notice. I also saw my friend’s take on my mother and her neglect and further abuse. No adult helped me back then, but my friends noticed me. I am still finding it difficult to comprehend, adults choosing not to help. Today, ignorance is no excuse as abuse stories are everywhere on the news.

There is so much to consider and recognize after having been deeply hurt by abuse. All of it is shockingly difficult to comprehend by anyone who has not been abused. Living with Complex PTSD where a small trigger can light a huge fire and in turn trigger something else, is why survivors sometimes have days or weeks feeling overwhelmed. Our senses are on high alert from hurt which happened a long time ago and time is needed to process the trauma with support. I am very lucky to have friends and family to turn to but there are times when I need specific help and for that I turn to a professional therapist. A professional psychologist understands how to steer hurt and pain into something small and tangible that can be better processed. After that healing can begin.

Trust me, it took me a very long time to realize that I needed help from a therapist. I believed all doctors, psychologists, and any institutions like hospitals were evil. The adults who were gaslighting me during my childhood were making me think help was the enemy. I now know that it was to keep me from revealing the truth. My change in opinion of doctors came in my early twenties when I got really sick with a nasty infection from strep throat that went untreated. I needed strong antibiotics and a friend dragged me to the ER in an unconscious state.  The doctors saved my life, which in turn changed my view. I am not afraid anymore to ask for help but at the time it took me a few more years to recognize that I needed psychological help.

Years later, I can now reveal what happened to me through my writing, but no one can really understand how it is still affecting me every day. Only I can tell those around me how I really feel. Not everyone wants to hear it so choose those people you trust carefully, especially those who you choose to be intimate with. You may lose people along the way and if that is the case, they were not as good a friend as they made you believe. Only a true friend wants the best for you. If you need medical help then turn to professionals, rather than the internet. A doctor can help you more efficiently than any drugs and alcohol. A doctor has the training and professionalism to put you on the right and most efficient treatment for your needs and if it is not helping, then speak up. The most important thing to remember is that you decide what happens to your body. If a doctor gives you a bad vibe, ask to see another one who you are more comfortable with. If a medicine is not making you feel better, then tell the doctor to change it.

Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book “The Body Keeps the Score” explains in detail how trauma affects a survivor of trauma and abuse. It is an excellent book to read to understand that trauma does leave something behind in both mind and body. Invisible wounds are so deep; they are buried in the essence of our souls, in our organs and muscles. It doesn’t disappear but we can train our bodies to live again, free from the shackles of abuse. The abuse happened to us and changed us irrevocably. The damage was done a long time ago, but it doesn’t mean that our lives are over. Far from it, our lives are happening right now because we survived. We are stronger for it. From now on, whatever life throws at us, we can handle it because we have been somewhere worse.

If you are having a bad day and you are feeling down, allow yourself some time to just be you. Take some time to do a hobby or go be with people who love you. Something to help you feel better and relax. Feel the stress of the day leave your body and relax all the tense muscles in your shoulders and neck. Take time to breathe!  Take good care of yourself and remember that you do matter, and you are not alone.