Tag: sexual abuse

Donna

Today’s topic on the blog is going to be tough. Please don’t click on the video below until you read the blog, and then decide for yourself whether you should watch it. The clip is a scene at a Christmas dinner in the incredibly well-acted Hulu television streaming series, The Bear. The scene, featuring the extremely talented actress, Jamie Lee Curtis, contains a lot of profanity, and it could be triggering for some of you, or at the very least, a spoiler for those who are in the midst of watching The Bear.

Emotional abuse is every bit as real as physical abuse and sexual abuse. Often abusers use more than one form of abuse, but emotional abuse by itself is every bit as damaging as physical abuse and sexual abuse, often because it is harder to describe and to explain. There are no physical marks with emotional abuse. No one’s body has been violated. (although emotional abuse tends to go deeper – it penetrates the soul.) Victims are often disbelieved or discounted as being “sensitive” because there is “no proof.” And abusers aren’t always abusing. Physical abusers aren’t pounding their fists on to people 24/7. Sexual abusers typically spend a great deal more time on grooming their victims and everyone else around them, than they actually do perpetrating their vile acts. And most abusers tend to be some of the most charming, interesting people you might meet on any given day. This is part of the abuse. It’s a constant bait and switch, or as some people call it – “the mindf#ck.” It’s known in psychology circles as “the intermittent chicken effect” which is based on a experiment with chickens. Renee Linnell explains it perfectly:

“In a child psychology class I took in college, I learned about intermittent reinforcement. In an experiment, chickens were taught to push a button with their beaks. In one group, each time the chicken pushed the button, a food pellet appeared. The chickens would peck at the button until they were full, then they would stop. In the second group, the chickens got rewarded with food at first but then consistently got nothing when they pushed the button. These chickens pushed the button a few times after the food stopped but soon grew bored and quit. In the third group, the chickens sometimes got a food pellet and sometimes did not. It was random. These chickens pecked the button until their beaks bled . . . and kept on pecking, never knowing if just one more push of the button would reward them with food. The result of the experiment: To strengthen behavior of any kind, use intermittent reinforcement.”

The scene below shows Jamie Lee Curtis’s character, “Donna”, holding everyone in the room hostage to her extreme moods. The entire afternoon, the show portrays how everyone around Donna is tip-toeing, doing everything that they can to keep her “even”. Donna’s friends and particularly her family are walking on eggshells, trying desperately not to set off the bomb of Donna’s extreme mood swings. They are all in a state of constant “fight or flight”, also known as hypervigilance. Their nervous systems have been on high alert all day. When someone has an emotional abuser as part of their everyday life, their nervous systems are usually a wreck because they are always “reading the room”, as if they were in a constant state of a high stakes, emergency situation. This becomes the usual state of being for victims of emotional abusers, particularly for their children, because their children have no choice otherwise. Abusers’ children rely solely on their abusers for their needs to be met. And so they learn to adapt the best ways that they can to manage their precarious situation.

Now when you watch this particular scene (or the whole episode), you can’t help but feel compassion for Donna. Donna is clearly a very sick and sad individual. She seems to have some mental disorders that she self-medicates with alcohol. It’s highly likely that she was a victim of abuse or trauma, herself. Abuse, mental disorders and addiction often go hand-in-hand. The real problem is that Donna doesn’t see herself as the problem. She sees everyone else as the problem, and she views herself as the victim. This is also common of abusers. However, when we excuse the behaviors of abusers, and we allow it to continue in our own lives by pretending it isn’t happening, nothing changes. The cycle of abuse goes on and on, and that’s why the same types of abuse and addictions are often perpetuated continually, throughout many generations of individual families. In the ideal world, Donna would submit to her problems, and get the help that she needs for her mental disorders and for her addiction to alcohol, and her family would get the help that they need for the coping mechanisms (such as codependence, acting out in rebellion, denial, their own addictions etc.) which they created for themselves, in order to deal with Donna’s unhealthy, damaging behaviors. But often it doesn’t go that way. Many abusers don’t believe that they have a problem. Many abusers can’t see that they are the problem. And many families choose to push things under the rug, and go along with the abuser’s illusion that there are no real problems (or that the victims themselves are the real problem), out of fear and sadness and guilt and shame and misguided “love and loyalty”.

I’m grateful for (as vivid and disturbing and upsetting as it can be), The Bear‘s honest portrayal of what many families experience when they have an abuser in the mix. It validates victims of emotional abuse, and with the popularity of the show, it seems obvious that this kind of abuse is more prevalent and relatable than we would like it to be. But by bringing this situation to the forefront, this show creates an opportunity for discussions and awakenings which can lead to healing for many people, and for many families. Long-running abusive cycles can be broken for future generations. Victims of abuse can be victorious cycle-breakers. And in the end, isn’t that a big part of what we are doing here on this Earth – trying to guide and to heal ourselves and each other, on to something better and more hopeful and more wonderful than has ever existed before?

Victims of abuse, I see you. I validate you. I care. You can prevail and be the change.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Mama, Trust Your Gut

I’m about to write the most important blog post that I have written, to date. I feel like it is my responsibility as a mother to relay this information.  Bottom line, if the writing of this post helps just one child stay safe then my blogging has fit every purpose I could ever hope for and I would feel forever grateful.

Mamas, when it comes to the people who come in contact with your children, listen to your gut instincts like you have never listened to them before.  Trust that roar that you hear from your inner “mama bear”.  Trust that feeling that flinches hard in your stomach around certain people who are a part of your children’s lives.  It is telling you something very important.  Listen to it.  No one knows about your child, cares about your child, loves your child, and is more attuned to your child and his or her safety, than you.  No one.  Nature has designed it that way.  I was walking our dogs the other day, past a pond where a mother duck and her ducklings were sunning themselves on the shore.  Out of nowhere, that mama duck puffed out her chest and spanned her wings to a size that I didn’t know that ducks were capable of being.  She blew up like a hot air balloon and ran towards us in such a fearsome manner, that I’m not sure who was more frightened, me or my large dogs.  Be that mama duck.  Listen to your instincts and take no chances.

I have four almost-grown children.  Their ages span from almost 15 to 22.  Like all kids these days, they have always been very busy with school events and lots of extracurricular activities throughout their childhoods.  Two of my children, just in my one little family’s experience, had coaches who ended up being child molesters.  One man went to jail.  The other man committed suicide before his case went to trial.  We are very fortunate that our children were not harmed, but others weren’t so fortunate.  I know far too many adults, women AND men, who were subjected to sexual abuse in one form or another when they were kids.  They carry scars that they will have with them for life.  Thankfully, more and more attention is being brought to this matter. The attention needs to be there.  It is a very real and devastating problem.

At least ten years ago is when my family was introduced to the first sexual offender (that I know of) in our children’s lives.  He was my son’s travel soccer coach.  He was charismatic, handsome, and married with a child.  Tactically and skills-wise, he arguably was the best coach in soccer that my son may have ever had to teach him soccer skills.  He was very involved in his church.  Everyone was impressed with him.  He worked at this prestigious soccer club part-time.  His full-time job was teaching for the local school district where he got high accolades, as well.  Nevertheless, that flinching in my gut that I was talking about, that happens quickly and fiercely, started almost immediately after meeting this coach.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  He was too slick.  He was too nice.  Sometimes he offered up car rides to the kids that would have been a little bit far out of his way.  During events like family picnics and travel meetings, he seemed a little too interested in spending time with the kids versus time with the adults.  The coach was very strict and controlling, often flaunting his authority over the kids and the team in front of everyone.  One time, when I sheepishly brought up my concerns at lunch with my fellow soccer moms, my instincts were put to doubt.  He worked for a school and a soccer club; clearly, he would have had to pass background checks.  He was married with a child of his own.  He was flirtatious with us grown soccer moms.  I felt embarrassed for even bringing up my concerns.  What a horrible thing to think about someone!  I felt ashamed, but that gut wrenching feeling still nagged at me.

All of the information and statistics about childhood sexual abuse wasn’t as prevalent back then.  I remember checking out one of the few books in the library on the subject matter of child molesters.  I contacted the author with my concerns about this coach.  Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the book or the author, because she was so kind and helpful.  She told me that I should absolutely trust my instincts and that at that point, my only recourse was to be as protective of my child as I could be.  She told me the horrifying statistics that child molesters will abuse 200-400 children before they are ever caught and the chances of them ever getting caught are dismal.  Only about one out of ten cases of childhood sexual abuse is ever reported to the authorities.

I was intensely protective of my son.  I never let him be alone with the coach.  My husband and I talked a lot to all of our children about protecting their personal space, that no one should be interested in their private parts and made sure that they were educated about sex in an age appropriate manner.  I recently read a quote from a sexual predator who said something to the effect of “show him a kid who doesn’t have any real knowledge about sexual matters and he’ll show you his next victim.”  Thankfully, my son was never harmed and for a while, a part of me wondered if I had been an alarmist, but I still felt better being safe than sorry.

Two years later, my husband and I almost fell off the couch when we saw this coach’s mugshot on the evening news.  He had been convicted of molesting at least one of his students.  He had worked at other school districts and other soccer clubs previously to being employed by ours. Chances were high that this wasn’t his first and only victim.

By the time my other son was exposed to a child molester, the signs were obvious to me.  This particular man was a classic groomer.  He was a prominent man in the community, owning his own law firm.  He was a father and a grandfather and a very charitable man.  He volunteered extensively throughout the years for local baseball and basketball teams.  He often treated the teams to expensive dinners and even bought some of the boys expensive shoes and gym memberships.  Again, my inner mama radar was pinging at a frantic pace.  It didn’t make sense that an older man without any real connections to my son’s team should be so invested and interested in these boys.  Again, I was very protective, making sure that my son would never be alone with this man.  I made sure that this man realized that I was a very involved parent; an attuned mother to my son.  I watched how he interacted with the boys intently and I think that he knew that I had my watchful eyes on him.  My son was unharmed, but at least one of his teammates was allegedly traumatically victimized.  That man killed himself before the trial.

I’m not going to use this blog to explain predator’s grooming tactics, or to emphasize the fact that most children know their perpetrators very well, or that there are certain traits child sexual predators look for in children that make them more of a target than other children.  Thankfully, there is so much good information out there now, at just the click of your computer’s mouse.  Use this information to educate yourself on what to look for, to better understand child molesters and how they operate. Please get educated on this very real and prevalent problem.  Our family’s experiences show just how common this scenario really is for our children.  Most important, all mothers, don’t ever, ever dismiss your inner gut reaction when it comes to protecting your children.  Trust that reaction like nothing you have ever trusted before.  Your children’s well-being and safety depends on it.