This chapter I mainly discuss from faith in your identity. Because incest is a form of child abuse. Heavily damaged children are usually searching their whole life for their identity and experiences of Wholeness. This search for Wholeness is basically identical to the search for the Self.
Believe in your identity involves both the entrance and the exit.
I was his princess ...
Nelly, a French girl, wrote at the age of 16 a book about her experiences around incest. She does this in a very direct and open manner.. She describes in her story exactly how the relationships were within the family and how it could happen that her father subtly approached more intimate , until finally he several times penetrated her when she was 12 years old.
. She clearly describes how emotions such as guilt, fear, love, loyalty and anger alternate, and she shows how difficult it is for a child to talk about the injustice what is done. She finally tells a teacher about it and her father is from one day to the other arrested. There is a lawsuit and her father goes to prison. Yet there is a lot of confusion and disbelief among the inhabitants of the village where she grew up.In her book she describes the view of people who think that a 12-year-old child should have been able to stop his behavior, and because she had not done this, she herself had been the seducer. They condemned Nelly because they didn't believe that such a nice friendly man has molested his daughter, who was twelve years old and already knew what was happening and not talked about.
Nelly finally was able to write this book because she was approached by a French journalist who had heard of the process. Therefore, she was interviewed in a TV program and so are also the people who believed that it was her own fault that her father committed incest with her. For Nelly, the program has been very healing because she was recognized as a victim, despite the fact that there were people who mockingly yelled that she only wanted to be on TV.
Supporting the child
The story gives shows how difficult the issues surrounding this topic are.The general disbelief, feelings of guilt, lies and wanting to downplay has everything to do with misunderstanding and ignorance. Besides that, there are a lot of people around who are addicted to sex and get aroused by anything forbidden. (Googel incest and immediately internet report to sexwebsites.)
It is important to realize that a child is always to the detriment of the adult, even though it's been (almost) adult. The natural sense of loyalty will always be the head stabbing, even if you stand in your full right to blame your parents abusing. A human being is nothing but a biologically conditioned product. That a child in the first instance loves his parents (or guardians) is a biological fact, it is totally dependent on them. If no full maturation to adulthood takes place this person remains always in the child dependency and he will always looking for relationships that meet this dependency. Actually you keep always feeling lonely because you never can find what you are looking for in an equivalent adult relationship.
The chances are quite high that the victim will repeat what himself has happened, unless some (emotional) awareness has taken place in which self-esteem is not completely destroyed and the grip on neurotic compulsive behavior is not lost.
A good starting point is the statement from writer / psychiatrist Alice Miller that a loving neighbor (family, friend, therapist) must stand completely behind the victim to support it. In the interest of the victim there must be someone who helps to be against the parents, so someone who stands for the child.The child in the victim must experience (re-conditioned) that there are "subparents' (these are the families who stand behind him and support him completely) and that they really care about the welfare of the child. A loving personal relationship (personal compassion), is indispensable in the processing of such a complicated trauma such as incest or child abuse. It is important to realize that victims of incest are extremely sensitive to signals. . If a therapist does not really mean what he says, a victim will notice this .If the therapist not really can endorse the child in the adult victim, the therapy will not work. .
The victim must feel that there are people who really care about him, it is a prerequisite for to love himself. A child loves himself unconditional from the natural state and contact with this love can be restored. Although it is still a serious trauma: awareness, understanding and acceptance make contact to the natural state possible.
Awareness
The point is that a victim must become aware of this: it must become aware of his trauma and his loyalty to his parents. You must become aware of your natural self-love and that this kind of love is always unconditional. This awareness leads to understanding and forgiveness of yourself and makes it possibly to forgive the offender, though the latter is not necessary because the anger is a natural emotion. (Forgiveness is an emotion that is usually misunderstood. Forgiveness often takes place within the meaning of "I don't care," Or: "He's still my father/ mother so ... "This is fake forgiven. Real forgiveness takes place in emotional understanding. In first place for yourself as a victim. Only then you can see that perpetrators are also victims of their addictions and conditioned ignorance.)
But how do you do that, that realization? Victims of incest may deny their experiences because the damage they have experienced can't be tolerated. They can not talk about the traumatic experiences because they are too confused and shocked. This denial is not wrong, it's a good survival strategy untill the victim is strong enough to face what has happened to him. This strenght may be a result of a simple gesture, a TV program, a book, a few words. Awareness is ATTENTION.
Every person should be confident that you can carry your story. If traumatic memories are severe, the body will find a natural way to survive. You don't need to be afraid of your fear. If a victim is ready, he may pay attention to what is necessary.
Your attention to your traumatic experience is of great importance. Your traumatic experience wants to be understood and solved. Sometimes this is not possible, then facing and accepting is the only exit. Experiences come and go and never affect the natural state.
(With acceptance I do not mean the acceptance of injustice, I mean awareness of injustice and accept the fact that this is done to you so you can start processing. Victims of incest often can't believe what happened to them. An essential basic trust has been violated and thus the experience of the right to exist. If you are constantly struggling with guilt and inferiority you become addicted to these thoughts and your whole body will be focused on self-destruction. By an emotional acceptance of your traumatic experience -you will slightly understand that the experience itself has nothing to do with your true self. Your true self is the witness of the traumatic experiences and also the witness of all the emotions and thoughts ! The latter is important to understand because, if you are suicidal , you have to see that behind the longing for death there is something much more important: your true self, the unchanging witness in which this all experiences are taken place. Your true self is Unchanging and undefiled. (About suicide: see appropriate chapter)
It is not a matter of doing something, it's a matter of concern (attention). The more attention to what you hurts, the more aware you will live and the more open your world will get.
Do not imagine what others might think of you or expect but focus on your openness, your true spontaneity.. Come to speak and let them take care of you when you talk about your very traumatic experiences.
Loyalty Conflict
(A conflict of loyalty is an inner conflict. If you as a child were seriously hurt by your parents, it is very possible that you are unable to blame your parents. This is because you feel a deep connection with your parents and you crave their love because you still feel dependent . A loyalty conflict can seriously impede processing. The child in you has to dare to face your anger to your parents. Only when that is done you can understand your emotions in normal proportions and your grief can be processed. )
The story of the French girl Nelly shows how in a minute after she told somebody her secret the police came to her house to arrest her father. The child is removed from the house and is put in a shelter, totally unprepared. Nelly describes how she first did not understand for what reason her father was arrested and how awful she felt by seeing how her father, whom she still very much loved, was be arrested. Her father left the police-station after four days and returns to the village where he lives and stays at his parents in anticipation of the trial. . Nelly can not leave the shelter. Her mother, who knew nothing of all this comes to visit her there. . Nelly describes that it's hard to accept that her father is a free man , while she herself is not allowed to go home Fortunately, the relationship with her mother slowly recovers and finally she returns to her mother and brother and sister. Her mother did not report to the police the sexual abuse because Nelly was in a conflict of loyalty ! ( Afterwards her mother regrets she didn't report her husband, because he as the father defends himself at the trial by accusing the mother as an absent wife and accusing his daughter as a dangerous seductress. One day it happened that her father accidentally meets Nelly (because he walked around freely untill the trial), and where they should embrace it because her grandparents (the parents of the father) want them to do this.Her grandparents notice that their son really suffers and that he misses his daughter terribly. Nelly let her father embrace her, while her whole family is watching. This incident shows how difficult and complicated it is to process incest in a family. During that period she tries to commit suicide three times.
Nelly is not the only victim. Her brother and sister loose their father and because of the taboo of incest they can not understand what exactly happened between their father and their eldest sister. Later tells Nelly's grandmother that Nelly's father himself ever been abused when he was five. Granny can not understand why Nelly has not told her anything about her sons first sexual harassment (tongue kissing). This is why Grandma thinks it's the fault of Nelly. The family got traumatized and unfortunality there is very little help and guidance from outside.
The experiences that are written by Nelly contribute to reflection. The whole event took place in the 90s of last century, and now, twenty years later, the father will not immediately be removed from home, partly because of the complicated loyalty conflicts that are bound to play.
Nelly''s father has to go for five years in prison, but Nelly does not feel recognized and understood.
In the conflict of loyalties finally her childish fear and anger wins from the childish unconditional love for her parents. Then she chooses to tell her story in a French TV program where she was asked for by a journalist who read about the trial in a local newspaper. The issue is discussed there from all angles and after the broadcast Nelly dares to return to her village without shame and frustration .
I was his princess - Nelly (Bosch & Keuning publisher)
a passage from'The Colors of Being Me' (Anne Vogy)
A victim of incest occurs outside herselve. This shock is called depersonalization. Where is the consciousness in this matter?
=== If you are from undefined in a human being is that the body think you are, then the most traumatic experiences that some of us suffer, sometimes is a reason to flee to that state of indefinable, which they call depersonalization.
Because creating this third person ( an object of the painful person) is not well understood, it is not used in ordinairy life. In your life you might always look this way. (Jan van Delden)
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