Sexual Abuse Healing

Did any of you see the Oprah show on sexual abuse last week? I watched part of it and couldn't take any more of it and had to shut it off. Upset me so much I called my group therapist sobbing the next day about SA issues, something I don't talk much about in therapy any more these days.

*****trigger warning*****

I'm going to describe what upset me so much about the show and I don't want it to trigger anyone else so please don't read this if you're not in a good place.

What upset me so much was that Mackenzie Phillips had apparently been on sometime recently (didn't see that show) and talked about being SA by her father. She apparently referred to her SA as "consensual." The show I watched had another woman on talking about how she was SA from age 4 until 20 something by her brother and she said it was also consenual. CONSENSUAL???? Since when is sexual abuse of a child ever considered consenual? I was so upset I had to turn it off. I was absolutely floored. Just because I wasn't tied up and handcuffed doesn't mean I had the power to stop what happened to me at any point. I was only 2 or 3 when it started, he was nearly 60. No matter if I had taken off my clothes and begged him to rape me, he was still the adult, I was still the child and he had all the power and control. For anyone to call this consensual is off their rocker. I bawled my head off to my group therapist the next day as I was so upset to hear them talking about it that way. Is that the way people think of childhood sexual abuse? I can't get this out of my head.

Thanks for answering Brenda. I appreciate that you've thought of me. Same to you and I hope you're doing well (((((Brenda)))))

The answer left me feeling depressed. Is that how the whole world sees us--SA victims--as people who went along with it and consented? Or is it just how SA victims see themselves? I find it terribly depressing and really struggling with this.

Allie

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

I also can see why you would be upset by that.

My counselor and I just had a discussion about parts of this last week due to us discussing some family skeletons in the closet.  He stated that yes the perpetrators almost always see themselves as the victim and unless they move past that, the are at a high risk of repeating.  We have also had a few discussions about the survivor, namely me, feeling like they consented.  Long story and definitely some triggers involved.

This is my personal observation backed up by many shooting the breeze sessions while working in a very male dominated industry so I will admit this applies mostly to female survivors.  When the survivor was anywhere from infant to late teens, their was absolutely no tolerance for that from anyone I worked/work with, regardless of gender.  Another absolute wrong was someone exploiting trust or power, regardless of age or age difference or gender.  Incest was not accepted either.  In all those cases everyone I worked/work with did/do not see the survivor as having consented.  Where debates happened was when talking about the teen years close to that "legal" age of 17 or 18, depending on the state.  There were some that felt 15 or 16 was old enough to give consent, despite what the law says.  I want to add this, if the abuse started before that age, it was seen by everyone as just a continuation of the abuse....how does one know any different if they had always been treated that way?

I hope I don't trigger you or make things worse, but wanted to give you an answer based on my personal observations.  This hasn't been a small pool of the same people either, I have worked from AK to FL and many different places in TX as well as attended several different college campuses.  So I hope that on the whole you can find some comfort there.

tk

Sorry, had to edit, I couldn't leave my story up there, it exposed too much of me and I had to change this post. Thanks to all of you caring friends who responded, I just can't do this, I can't share this much.