"As a child, I learned that strength was the denial of feeling. Now I see that feeling is the key to self-honesty. Within feeling is found the passion for change." ........A Survivor
In this post I will explain three defenses victims of sexual and physical abuse use to contain the feelings generated by their past experiences in an effort to survive. This topic and field is complex and controversial and my intention in writing is to assist survivors and educate their loved ones. In that spirit if it helps you in some way, it will have been worth the effort and time spent in writing it. Since I will make some generalizations there will be some exceptions to the rule so you may find generalizations that dont apply to you.
One very important factor to consider is the age when the violation took place. According to researchers in this field, if sexual abuse occurs prior to age six the mind has the ability to repress it so deeply in the unconscious mind that amnesia occurs. This natural defense helps the child to survive and adapt to the predatory environment. One victim once told me that at age five, it was customary for her father to come into her bedroom at night have sex with her and the next day she couldnt remember the experience nor the feelings.
Think of these defenses as the three walls of a triangle that contain the feelings inside for the victim to deal with in later years. With time these defenses begin to wear down or weaken plus it takes a lot of energy to contain the emotions, this is one reason why abuse survivors feel constant fatigue in later years. We think the unconscious mind begins to bloom the feelings to be released once it knows the victim has acquired the necessary resources or inner strengths to deal with all the feelings and issues through lifes experience.
Denial: While all defenses are powerful this one tends to be the most used. The victim oftentimes is threatened to not tell anyone at the risk of grave harm to the victim or the rescuer or both. This is like putting an energetic lock in the form of a hypnotic command while in a deep state of trance. The reason for the trance state is the hyper emotional state the victim is in. In this state any commands given are programmed into the unconscious without any conscious rational filtering. What this means in plain English is that those commands are recorded there and run as an operating system much like that of a computer. The computer does not care whether the programming is true or false and flawed, it will execute it as it was programmed. In similar ways the victim thinks and feels as programmed by the victimizer and the experience. In one case I had a forty five year old woman deny that her parents (who were drug users) had instigated her rape by multiple persons. She had been ritually abused and commanded not to tell anyone. When this victim was asked pointed questions she would go into an age regressed state of a little girl and just black out. In time when her defense of denial was removed she got visual flashbacks and the emotions she had repressed. This is such a lengthy topic that I will write a future post on it.
Repression: This defense buries the feelings very deep that accessing them is next to impossible. Some victims report the feeling of going crazy, why? As a result of feeling ambivalent not knowing for certain whether the abuse took place or not due to being unable to assess the feelings. They may blame themselves of having a highly creative imagination. In some cases the victim rationalizes and justifies the abuse. As pathological as this sounds there are factors that lead to this. One is the victim experiences an orgasm during the abuse. The distorted belief that accompanies this type of rationalization is, if I enjoyed it then I must have instigated it, caused it, or wanted it. What the victim fails to understand is that the body was merely responding to stimulation even if it was forced. Another factor is the hypnotic commands said to the victim in a highly suggestible state of trance, during the abuse. In one case I had one woman report to me how her stepfather forced her to say to him during the abuse, Im daddys little whore. It is no wonder this woman, as an adolescent became extremely promiscuous.
Dissociation: This is the phenomenon of leaving your body and projecting yourself to some other location, even inside the abusers body. Some victims report under hypnosis that they are floating above their bodies viewing themselves being abused. Since they are dissociated from their body it is literally like the abuse happened to someone else. Since victims have the acquired ability to read other peoples energy and some can spot predators, they report it as a heavy sensation or some somatic sensation in their body. One important factor that often happens with victims who learned to dissociate is they experience splintering. This is a defense mechanism that partitions the feeling into parts of them or sub-personalities. In the extremity of abuse and trauma it leads to dissociative disorders formerly known as multiple personalities.
Suggested reading:
Vital lies simple truths by Daniel Goldman
Feelings buried alive never die by Carol Kuhn
The path to wholeness by Carol Tuttle