Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The effect of sexual abuse on the young

A small child has no understanding of sex. It’s unthinkable that the activity could be “bad” when the perpetrator is a trusted authority. The child is in no position to “agree” to sex, not having the life experience to make such a judgment.

For me, the big people were my dignified old grandfather whom everyone respected and my heroic father returning home in his soldier’s uniform from the army. I was brought up to obey adults. I also knew not to tell anyone what I did with these big men.

Life was very confusing. One summer day my friend Robby and I were busy with our three year old explorations in a neighbour’s back yard. We found a collection of empty flower pots.

Robby pulled down his tartan shorts and showed me how he could pee into the flower pots standing up. I was amazed. Looking at his fleshy equipment I couldn’t have been more delighted if he’d shown me a newborn puppy. I squatted over the flower pot and took my turn.

When it was time to go home, my mother greeted me with anger.

“You’re a very bad, nasty girl,” she snapped.

“I didn’t do anything,” I managed to mutter, having no idea what my sin had been.

Never looking me in the eye, she whipped me around so that my back was to her full length mirror. My skirt was caught up in my underpants. Oh, I remembered, the flower pots. Somehow that meant I was bad.

I don’t know whether I ever cleared my head enough to wonder why playing with Robby was so bad but what my father and grandfather did was okay. It was all too confusing to even think about.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The link between child abuse and domestic violence

Last week I trundled a dolly of my books to the conference held by Sick Children’s Hospital for professionals working in the area of child abuse and domestic violence. Domestic violence? I wondered. It surprised me that these two areas were being so closely linked.

I thought about it for a moment and soon realized it made perfect sense. We all tend to restage our childhood traumas in adulthood. We parent the way our parents did, unless we consciously change. Change calls for awareness and some help in living life differently.

I remembered the sessions I had attended at the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation conference in Atlanta. The trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk described the 200% increase in boys who witnessed their mothers being beaten becoming beaters.

Dr. Martin Teicher of McLeans Hospital discussed his research on the impact of child abuse on the brain. He told us that, for boys, witnessing domestic abuse has the most disastrous results. For girls, familial sexual abuse has the highest impact on their future functioning.

Child abuse leads to repressed rage and dissociation, difficulty in establishing trusting relationships with other adults – the list goes on. All of which bring us to an increased likelihood of domestic abuse.

Where do we start? We need to work at both ends to prevent child abuse. This means identifying, educating and supervising parents where children are at risk. It also means helping the children who are suffering so that they don’t grow up to either abuse or fail to protect their own children from being abused (because they’ve learned to dissociate to avoid pain or are numbed into a state of helpless, childlike terror.)

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Seeking help for sexual abuse victims—it's a new world

Last Tuesday I was talking to The Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centers across the province. I was sitting in a room in the Hospital for Sick Children with one other person and a couple of TV screens. The people watching were in their various settings picking up my talk about the effect of child sexual abuse across one’s lifespan on Telehealth (video conferencing).

To illustrate I used my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, and discussed my own life as told in my memoir. Corry Azzopardi, a social worker who has been with the SCAN team (Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect) for nine years, was the moderator sitting beside me in that room with the two screens.

Why was this so amazing for me? When I began to recognize and treat the wounds of child sexual abuse in my adult clients, almost no one believed this crime against children existed in our society.

My husband, psychiatrist Dr. Harvey Armstrong, had been a pioneer in believing and helping children at The Hincks Treatment Centre when he was a resident in training there. He had an unusually wise supervisor, Dr. Gus Hood, who also believed – despite the fact that the psychiatric text of the day taught that child sexual abuse happened only once in a million families and that probably the psychiatrist would never meet it.

That was in the 1970s. During my years of maturing in our society, nobody had ever heard of such a thing. There was absolutely nowhere I could have gone for help as a child. All I could do in order to survive was forget.

Thank goodness today’s well-trained dedicated professionals not only believe their clients, but know how to help them heal and transform their lives.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Russell Williams – “Call me Russ”

We’ve all been shaken to the core by this seemingly upstanding leader who turns out to be an evil sadist. The question most of us ask ourselves is this: How could this man be that man? How can the same person be a pillar of society and, at the same time, a depraved, heartless killer with a fetish for women’s lingerie?

Russell Williams, we’ve found out, is married to a woman who is respected by her colleagues and friends. On the surface, their lives together looked ideal: two successful adults doing good work for their communities.

In my own professional and private life, this has always been a burning question for me. We all know of self-righteous politicians who are revealed to have a secret and perverse sex life. Most of the perpetrators of my clients are pillars in their communities, popular heads of companies, church leaders and educators recognized with plaques and thanks for their years of service. My own grandfather was the epitome of self-controlled respectability.

It was this same question that led me to study German history for many years. I was teaching trauma therapy in Germany, getting to know my students and their parents who had often served The Third Reich. The participants in my workshops who were usually born just after the war. They’d often been beaten and shamed by their parents. It turned out that Germany has a long, well documented history of cruel child rearing known as “Black Pedagogy.” How, I wondered, could these gentle, sensitive older people I was meeting be the same people who beat their children and carried out unspeakably brutal acts under the Nazis?

What happened to Russell Williams to turn him into a monster? Was he born to be heartless and evil? Or did something awful happen to him? It’s an important question to ponder.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Don't be a bystander—that's all the help the perpetrator needs from you

What can each of us do to prevent a child’s life from being ruined by abuse?

First, we need to be aware. We need to deal with our own denial or dissociation around child abuse. Society’s denial and refusal to believe that child physical, emotional and sexual abuse are endemic allows child abuse to continue unchecked. It’s so easy to deny what you’re seeing or hearing.

In her wise and carefully reasoned book, Trauma and Recovery, Judith Hermann says this:

It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides….It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens (pp. 7&8)

Which brings me to my own recent experience when the Globe and Mail published a favourable interview about me and my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist. No sooner was the article posted on the paper’s website than those whom I can only assume are perpetrators announced in authoritative tones that recovered memory had been proved not to exist and that I was some sort of hysterical female ruining the reputation of the men who are long dead and unable to defend themselves.

Those of us who join together in the fight to prevent child abuse need to be aware of these dirty tactics.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Traumatic memory—get informed

Want a fast and easy way to gain accurate, up-to-date information about traumatic memory and dissociation? Go to www.isst-d.org/education/trauma-info.htm. Then click on students and public.

Next, click on dissociative disorder information or trauma information or frequently asked questions.

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is a society of clinicians, researchers and academics that exists to train professionals and educate the public about psychological trauma.

Or you might Google traumatic memory. I did and I found solid, informative papers by leaders in the field of psychological trauma. Under Scholarly Articles for Traumatic Memory, click on van der Kolk and you’ll find this expert’s paper explaining the following:

“Trauma is an inescapably stressful event that overwhelms people’s coping mechanisms.” He describes “the differences between the recollections of stressful and traumatic events.”

A study of 46 subjects with PTSD indicates that “traumatic memories are retrieved, at least initially, in the form of dissociated mental imprints of sensory and affective elements of the traumatic experience: as visual, olfactory, affective, auditory and kinesthetic experiences. Over time, subjects reported the gradual emergence of a personal narrative that can be properly referred to as “explicit memory."

In my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist you can follow my personal process as my “traumatic memories were retrieved at least initially in the form of dissociated mental imprints.” I was in my late 40s before I had a personal narrative that made sense of my life and was a clear memory of incest.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Why traumatic memories are different

Traumatic memories are different from “bad memories.” Traumatic memories are those memories which the brain recognized as intolerable and inescapable. When we cannot live with a memory most of us are capable of dissociating. That is, the terrible event is not something we remember. This is a survival mechanism. Our brains don’t store what is too terrible to remember.

Soldiers experience this when they have witnessed what’s too horrible to endure. Survivors of torture and imprisonment in repressive regimes describe “forgetting” the terror they experienced until later. Children who are being abused by the adults who should be protecting them have to dissociate the memories in order to survive the betrayal.

Not everyone is capable of dissociating. My hunch is that children who are not able to dissociate and who live with unbearable suffering are those children who suicide or die in “accidents.”

The point is that the brain doesn’t store traumatic memory the way it stores other memories. It takes a little effort to learn about how the brain deals with events that are too awful to store and which we cannot escape.

You can go online to learn about traumatic memories if you don’t have that knowledge now. If you choose not to learn, then please do not say, “But how can you forget something so awful? I remember everything….” That’s really hurtful and insensitive to those of us who have lived with dissociation. If you don’t make the effort to understand, please don’t pretend you have a valid opinion.

Monday, September 20, 2010

The Globe and Mail tells my story

What an amazing feeling to waken this morning and find my story in The Globe and Mail! Sarah Hampson interviewed me about my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist and there was my photo and her description of our meeting right on the front page of the Life Section.

Then I went to the Internet and found it on the Globe’s webpage. But wait a minute, it had just come out and already people were commenting on it. They sure weren’t wasting any time. Let’s see…what were they saying?

Oh! They were all saying with a tone of authority that the issue of recovered memories was dead: that it was all in my imagination. They, of course, didn’t identify themselves or state their credentials for making such a statement and clearly they had not read my book.

“They” are ready to pounce on any information that might inform the public of our society’s endemic child sexual abuse. “They” are usually perpetrators who are waiting in fear for the children they once abused and who are now grown up, to sue them for their retirement savings. It’s an all too common event in the fight against child sexual abuse.

Anyway, since you’re reading my blog, you no doubt know differently. Please go to the Globe and Mail link given below and – if you feel comfortable doing so – leave a comment.

Read The Globe and Mail story by clicking this link: HERE

Friday, September 17, 2010

Old messages that hold us back

We all carry old messages, sometimes called implicit memories, from our early life. They’re messages we picked up from the world we were born into. They’re so much a part of us we barely know they exist.

What are your old messages? Maybe you learned:
-that you weren’t lovable
-that you weren’t smart enough
-that the world was a really scary place
-that you had to build a wall around yourself to be safe

Whatever your message, it’s probably not true in your present day world. It’s important to take a good hard look at these old tapes. They can be self-fulfilling.

-If you’re convinced you’re stupid, you likely avoid trying to get more education or a better job.

-If you consider yourself unlovable, maybe you don’t let people get to know you. Maybe you keep others at a distance so they won’t see how defective you are.

-If you think the world is such a scary place, you probably don’t take advantage of opportunities that come your way.

-Ask yourself if you really need to stay so hidden from others.

Once we identify our old messages, we need to take a good hard look at our current reality. What is the evidence for my stupidity? Are there signs that I’m not so stupid, like a graduation certificate? Or a good evaluation at work?

I’m unlovable? Is there somebody who loves me in spite of my faults?

When was the last time I was actually threatened by the world?

Are the people in my current world really dangerous to me?

It’s really important to learn what your old messages are and begin to change them.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Is your mind racing?

Is your mind racing, planning, worrying, relentlessly reviewing the past or agitating over the future? This is a useless waste of energy and a misuse of the mind. (see my blog post of July 25/10, How To Take Control of Your Mind).


It’s important to ask yourself why your mind is racing. Why does your frantically busy mind think it’s important to keep you in an agitated state? What’s it keeping your from paying attention to? What would you be thinking about if your mind weren’t racing? What’s the real problem here?


Ask yourself: If I weren’t worrying about all that, what would I be thinking about?


Often the racing mind is just a cover up for the real problem. To get at the real stuff, we have to quiet the buzz and the static of the racing mind. We need to get quiet and ask ourselves what we’re really upset about.


Most often it isn’t about the seemingly endless list of chores to be done. Rather it’s about the relationship we’re in or the disappointment we’re experiencing in our own lives. Sometimes memories are trying to surface in our consciousness: memories that the mind doesn’t want us to know about.


All the worrying in the world about the past, the future or the jobs to be done, won’t address the real problem, whatever it is.


Recognize the racing mind for what it is. A distraction. A red herring meant to keep us from dealing with what really matters.


Do you have experience with a racing mind? Perhaps you’d leave a comment below to help others. I promise to reply to your comment.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Stress can wipe out memory

Memory is stored indelibly when an event shakes our world. We can all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when 9/11 occurred. Stress at exam time helps us commit more to memory. Up to a point, then, stress helps store memory.

Knowing this, people who do not understand trauma have difficulty accepting that intolerable stress can wipe out memory, as it often does in childhood abuse. My own book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist: A Memoir of Healing and Transformation tells my story of uncovering memories of child sexual abuse when I was almost 50.

I know it’s amazing. But it’s true. The normal child’s brain does not store what is too terrible to survive. Forgetting allows the child to continue to live within that family or situation when no other life is possible. After all, a child can’t decide to live elsewhere.

I’m always surprised when I meet otherwise intelligent people who cannot fathom that it’s possible to wipe out a childhood history of betrayal by the adults who were supposed to protect you. I forget that many people still are not aware of the prevalence of child abuse.

Recently, I told a neighbour the subject of my recently published book. This well educated, caring man expressed disbelief. It was really a stretch for him to view me as one who had been traumatized by child sexual abuse. I don’t look like Precious (from the movie of the same name), after all, and I didn’t grow up in a slum. That I could have forgotten the abuse in my childhood until I was nearly 50 was mind boggling for the poor man.

It takes some effort to learn about memory storage and to understand how something too terrible to remember, a secret too awful to know, can be pushed into the unconscious to allow the child to survive.

Do you have an experience to share? I’d like to hear from you in the section for comments on this blog.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The trauma myth

There’s a new book on trauma called The Trauma Myth: The Truth About the Sexual Abuse of Children – and Its Aftermath. I ordered it online from Amazon. The promo interested me. The author, Susan A. Clancy, a researcher at Harvard, claims that the adult survivors of child sex with adults did not find the sexual activity traumatic at the time it occurred.

I was interested. From my clients’ stories and from my own experience with my father and grandfather, I know that physical force and fear are not necessarily involved in child sexual. The perpetrator is most often a trusted, loved adult authority.

The abuse for these children does not meet the criteria for trauma. It wasn’t intolerable and inescapable at the time. The lifelong damage they suffer comes from the guilty secret they must hide, their sense of betrayal when they’re old enough to understand the meaning of sex and their shame about participating in these acts. Clancy is certainly not the first to point out that, for many children, it’s often not the act itself that causes the problems. “They made it clear to me that the abuse was not traumatic for them when it was happening because they had not understood what was going on,”she writes. (p.55)

When the book arrived I was shocked to read the author’s claims that child sexual abuse damages people because “of therapists and others who make a business of treating the supposed victims.”

Whooaa, there! Something was very wrong with this book. What’s more, she said recovered memory was nonsense. (Clearly, Susan Clancy has not read my detailed account in Confessions of a Trauma Therapist of how my memories surfaced in my late 40s?) Anyone who knows about recovered memory realizes 50 is a usual age for memories to surface.

Confused, I went back to Amazon where I’d ordered the book and read the reviews. (I should have done this in the first place before I spent my money on such nonsense) It turns out Susan A. Clancy has no experience as a psychotherapist. She is a researcher and associated with a group of people who deny that children are harmed by sex with adults.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Guilt: a useless emotion

Years ago, Dr. Eugene Gendlin, my psychological mentor, told me that guilt is a useless emotion. “It doesn’t do anybody any good,” he said. “It just makes you feel bad.”

I pondered that for a long time. Wasn’t guilt what normal, decent people experience when they’ve betray their own sense of fair play? When they cheat or lie? Would I be responsible and reliable without my guilty conscience?

Back in those days, I wasn’t aware of feeling shame. Later, I learned that shame is the last emotion we become aware of. In fact, shame is such an uncomfortable feeling that psychology has only recently studied it. Most people squirm at the thought of studying their own shame.

Since shame is the inevitable outcome of child abuse, it seems important to get a handle on it. But what’s the difference between shame and guilt?

Guilt is in response to something we have done. Shame, on the other hand, is about who we are. There is something innately defective or wrong with us.

That means that we can do something about guilt. We can make amends, change our behaviour or apologize.

Maybe that’s what Dr. Gendlin meant – that we don’t have to carry our guilt with us. Maybe the message is this: Do whatever you need to do and drop your guilt.

What do you think? Please let me know by writing a comment in the space provided below.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Is "The Critic" Running Your Life?

The Critic is that inner voice or feeling that tells you you’re no good, just lazy or somehow defective. Everybody has one and every psychological system recognizes it. Focusing calls this destructive super ego talk The Critic.

Where does it come from? In childhood, we internalized the way we perceived the voices of our authority figures, usually our parents and teachers. Now these voices are no longer outside. They’re in our heads.

Does it have any value? Probably your Critic just wants you to be a successful human being. But it goes about it the wrong way – like those parents you hear screaming at their little kid to shape up. Their intention is all right. The way they go about it is damaging.

The Critic has no value. It’s not your conscience. It’s not what keeps you on the straight and narrow. (It may take a while to convince yourself of this.)

How should I deal with it? Don’t engage with it. You’re sure to lose! Here are the steps.

1) Recognize it. We become so accustomed to this disparaging voice that we don’t even notice it. How to recognize the Critic? It speaks in a shrill, harsh tone. You’ve been feeling fine and suddenly you feel lousy. (Your conscience speaks in a still, small voice. It might give the same underlying message, but your conscience speaks softly and puts it in a way that won’t undermine you.)

2) Tell it in no uncertain terms to get lost. Treat it the same way you would (hopefully) deal with a person in real life who was following you around, making you feel terrible about yourself.

3) Practice this until you can be the winner in the fight for your peace of mind. Remember that the Critic’s mission is to keep you from being all that you really are.

You’ll never be rid of it entirely, but it’s your job to cut it down to size.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

How to take control of your mind

Have you ever paid attention to all the chatter that goes on in your head? Do you believe that valuable thoughts and ideas fill your mental space all day long?

Care to find out what’s really happening in your mind all day long? Chances are you spend a lot of energy mumbling to yourself and agitating over what’s already happened or might happen in the future.

Here’s an exercise designed to help you get to know your mind. I learned it from my spiritual teacher, Swami Sivananda Radha when I told her I considered my thoughts too important to set aside so that I could keep repeating my mantra all day. She challenged me to get to know my mind on a more personal basis. Maybe it wasn’t as productive as I thought, she said. Here’s the exercise she gave me:

1) Sit in a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed. Have paper and pen nearby, but not on your lap.
2) With eyes closed or open, observe your train of thought for ten minutes. Just let your mind go wherever it wants.
3) At the end of the ten minutes, write down all the thoughts you’ve had.

What are your conclusions? Are you really thinking profound thoughts? Or are you just producing boring and repetitive ruminations that raise your blood pressure and make you anxious? Is there anything of value going on in your idling mind? Would you be willing to exchange it for peace and quiet?

Try the exercise and let me know what you discover. Please leave a comment in the space below.

Friday, July 16, 2010

You can change your brain!

I’m fascinated by John Ratey’s book, A User’s Guide to the Brain. Ratey tells us that it’s up to us to make the most of the brains we’re born with. Our genes and our brain do not predetermine our fate unless we allow this. We may be predisposed to anger, overeating or abuse of alcohol, but each time we overcome our particular weakness, we help change the brain. The brain has amazing plasticity, not only when we’re children but throughout our lives!

By viewing the brain as a muscle that can be weakened or strengthened, we can exercise our ability to determine who we become. Indeed, once we understand how the brain develops, we can train our brains for health, vibrancy, and longevity. Barring a physical illness, there’s no reason why we can’t stay actively engaged into our nineties (p. 17.)

In other words, use it or lose it.

All our brains have the same general features that make us human. But each of us develops an “exclusive brain suited to our particular needs” (p. 31.) This exclusive brain has been developed in response to our environment and our experiences.

In the case of early trauma, the brain develops to survive a hostile environment. This ability to adapt allowed the human species to survive warzones and extreme hunger. “The brain is a dynamic, highly sensitive system that may adapt, for better or worse, to almost any element of its environment” (p.6.)

So, what do you and I do if our brains have been shaped by early abuse? First of all, we need to be grateful for our brain’s ability to adapt and allow us to survive. Then it’s up to us to train our brains, as Ratey says, for health, vibrancy and longevity.

When I come to think of it, my own efforts at re-training my brain to feel safe and loved have centered on being physically fit, surrounding myself with caring, decent people and increasing my self esteem by being successful in my work.

Do you have some ways you realize you have changed your brain? What has worked for you to lessen the effects of early childhood trauma?

I'd like to hear from you. Please leave a comment.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Studying the family tree

We can all benefit from studying our family trees. Once we have an accurate picture of where we come from, much of our life struggles make sense. Too often we are told only of the characters who reflect well on the family. Erasing the troubled and the weak only confuses us. If we don’t have the truth, we cannot come to a conclusion that makes sense of our lives.

In a recent Globe and Mail, Sarah Hampson interviews James FitzGerald the author of a new memoir. She describes him as belonging to high-WASP culture. In What Disturbs our Blood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem the Past, the author explores the psychology of his father and grandfather who both committed suicide at the height of their careers as successful medical pioneers. “In my family if you become successful you end up crazy or dead,” says the author.

The shameful secret of the suicides was something no one in the family would discuss. Fitzgerald had to work hard to get the story. He describes himself as a “traitor to his class” setting about to reveal the inner working of high-WASP culture.

“Learning the truth made him feel as though he wasn’t crazy himself. He could finally come to terms with the complexity of his childhood,” says Hampson.

“His two sibling have been supportive of the work. The telling of the story has helped them too,” says Hampson. (The Globe and Mail, Monday July 5, 2010.)


Does that sound familiar? Only when we understand our own family history and what we experienced in childhood can we be compassionate with our bewildering and embarrassing failures in life.

The truth sets us free.

What do you think? Is it always best to know the truth about our families? Or is it sometimes better not to dig up skeletons in the closet?

Leave your comment in the space below.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

The Amygdala: your brain's watchdog

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of stepping off the curb and almost being run over by a truck. But you weren’t! Before you knew it, you’d jumped back on the sidewalk. You were probably amazed that you reacted so fast.

You can thank your brain’s survival system, the fight or flight response. You didn’t have time to register that there was a truck threatening your life. There was no time for thinking. Your limbic system’s amygdala saved your life.

If you’re a trauma survivor, there may be times your amydgala embarrasses you - like when you are startled by someone coming up behind you, causing you to nearly jump out of your skin. When you were a child your amygdala fired and fired, with good reason. It’s as if the amygdala got worn out when you lived with intolerable and inescapable fear as a child.

In your present life, situations that remind the amygdala of the terrifying past–smells, sounds, visual flashes, anything that the brain’s watchdog perceives as threatening your safety–set off the alarm system in your brain.

Your amygdala doesn’t distinguish between your present safety as an adult and your vulnerable life as the child you once were. Trauma therapy and relaxation may lessen its vigilance, but since it’s neurological, you just have to learn to live with it.

It’s worth establishing a friendly relationship with the amygdala. After all, when you were suffering and frightened, it was working very hard to help you survive. Developing a hostile relationship with it will only make things worse.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Telling and "Dying"

The first time I disclosed my own history of child sexual abuse publicly, I was presenting a workshop on trauma to a conference of colleagues. This was early in the North American therapeutic community’s awareness of the brain’s role in trauma. The setting was a resort near Boston. The conference was the annual International Focusing Conference.

In my presentation I mentioned my own history of childhood trauma mainly as a point of interest, merely stating the fact without any of the details.

A number of my colleagues came up to me afterwards and offered their condolences and surprise that something like this had happened to me. I felt pleased with the knowledge I had brought to the conference and with my courage in presenting it.

I went upstairs to my room, intending to get ready for the evening’s socializing. That was as far as I got. I was hit by an inexplicable black hole of depression. Suddenly I felt horrible. Any liveliness I had felt earlier in the day was smothered in grey ashes.

There were several colleagues who would have been very willing to use their therapeutic skills to help me through this mysterious bog of despair. But I was too frozen to ask someone to help me.

It wasn’t until weeks later when I met with Dr. Ralph Bierman that he led me to realize I was living out my father’s threat – you tell, you die. I had told and now I was dying.

Our bodies seem loaded with persecutory triggers, ready to paralyze us with anxiety or depression when we tell our terrible secrets.

Friday, June 25, 2010

A tidal wave of love after disclosing child sexual abuse

I’m feeling incredibly loved and supported these days. Why? Ever since I published Confessions of a Trauma Therapist people have been coming up to me to express their caring and sadness that I carried a heavy burden in my earlier life. I’ve never had so many hugs.

Readers have been thanking me for helping them deal with their own painful childhood memories. Many express their appreciation that I put into words the way my memories gradually surfaced. Others tell me my struggles help them validate their own difficulties and feel less shame for what was done to them. They all send me their thanks and their caring.

As well, I’ve heard from old friends who send me love and their understanding. Some knew about my childhood. Some didn’t. One dear friend whom I haven’t seen very much in recent years, shared with me her own recovered memory of child abuse.

Publishing my memoir was, on my part, an act of courage. It took me a long time to decide to go public with a story that laid bare my unsavoury childhood and would bring pain to my extended family. Did I have a right to upset my sister and my nephews and nieces? I had to balance this against the good my book would do out there in the world.

I decided to put my story out there to help the thousands of others suffering from the invisible wounds of childhood trauma. I never anticipated all the love and caring that would be directed my way when I told my story. I am once more reassured that telling our secrets is healthy and good for everyone, even though telling sets off alarm bells in our psyches.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

EMDR? What's that?

Before I learned Eye Movement, Desensitization and Reprocessing, I had considerable success in treating victims of childhood trauma. Yet, there were always some aspects of trauma remaining. People were still triggered into panic by sounds, smells or sights which are benign in the present but propell them back into a terrifying past. This happens so fast there is no time to think about it. As well, their exaggerated startle response to any sudden noise remained.

What wasn’t known back when I was using standard therapies, is that trauma is held in the right side of the brain, the emotional side. The trauma does not have access to the left brain, the logical, cognitive side. It’s only an eighth of an inch between the two halves, but the spark can’t jump the gap, so to speak. EMDR allows the right side to connect with the left and “reprocess” the experience.

How is this done? EMDR treatment involves the bi-lateral stimulation of the brain: left side, right side by directing the eyes from side to side, tapping the hands, using headphones to send sound to the left and then to the right ear. This bi-lateral stimulation uses the brain’s natural way of dealing with upsetting emotion. Think of the rapid eye movement when someone is dreaming. Dreaming is not enough to handle the terror of trauma. The brain needs added help to clear the emotion.

EMDR takes advantage of the brain’s natural way of dealing with emotion. The EMDR practitioner guides the client’s eyes with her fingers, a light wand or a light bar. Sometimes the practitioner uses light tapping on the hands or knees.

Typically, clients start out very upset by the memory and end up putting the upset in the past where it belongs. Measuring the degree of upset on a scale of 0 – 10, people may start out with a 10 and end up with a 0 or 1.

Practitioners of EMDR specialize in helping clients heal from psychological trauma. They are psychotherapists with a thorough understanding of trauma and its effects on people. The eye movement described in this post is safe only in the hands of such professionals.

You can find out more on the EMDR website at www.emdr.org.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

8 reasons why focusing may be for you

Have you ever heard of Focusing? It’s a sort of inner yoga and it may be just what you’ve been looking for. Focusing teaches you to access your own deepest, wisest self. It takes you to a deeper level of awareness than is ordinarily possible. It teaches you to be with yourself in a compassionate, caring way.

Check out the reasons it may be right for you.

1)Are you wondering what underlies your anxiety, shyness, depression, malaise?
2)Do you have voices in your mind telling you you’re no good, stupid, unworthy, lazy, dirty, bad?
3)Do you feel you’re to blame for the bad stuff that happens around you?
4)Do you have trouble being compassionate with yourself?
5)Do you have trouble making decisions?
6)Do you look to others to tell you what’s right?
7)Would you like a sure-fire way of knowing your life is on the right track?
8)Would you like to experience yourself as a unique and wonderful organism in the universe?

In other words, would you like to have a way of knowing what’s right for you without asking somebody, tossing a coin or getting out the Ouija board?

Would you like to be able to check inside your body for guidance? Focusing teaches you how to recognize your body’s signals, those physically felt responses to your life that are meant to keep you doing whatever is life seeking for you.

In my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, I tell how Focusing helped me safely access my repressed memories of child sexual abuse and how this practice guided my healing. If that sounds useful to you, I’ll suggest some ways you can learn to Focus.

You can learn to Focus from the Bantam paperback by the same name or go online and find a teacher at www.focusing.org. It’s simple to learn and, as most profoundly simple things, it can take you to some very deep places.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Three essential life lessons my yoga guru taught me

During my ten years of studying with Swami Sivananda Radha, my guru brought order to my inner chaos. One of the most effective practices involved determining priorities for each day. Everything else could fall into place around the most important events. Balance was central to the yogi’s life. Balance, however, did not have to occur in the space of one day. It could be over a period of time. For example, on some days getting things done might be the priority. On another, relaxing and self-care might be central themes.

She was the first feminist I met. Women need a room of their own, she told me. Very few women, even those in large houses, have a room where they can close the door and leave everything untouched until they return. If you can’t have a room, at least have a part of a room which is out of bounds to others.

On energy: think of your energy like fuel in your gas tank. Never run on your reserve. Another time she told me that energy was like a bank account. Some activities and people give you energy. These are like deposits in your account. Other activities and people drain you. These are withdrawals. Try to keep as much money in the bank as possible.

On food: if you think it’s bad for you, for goodness’ sake don’t eat it.

On abortion: It is hard to find a human birth. Usually the soul does not enter the fetus until the last moment. If a fetus is aborted, the soul is not destroyed. It simply goes looking for another birth.

On an altar: Make a special place in your house for prayer and meditation, even if it’s just a place where you don’t ordinarily sit.

Today, thirty years later, many of these practices still serve to structure my life.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Why yoga?

Long before I knew that my “irrational” fear and anxiety were caused by child sexual abuse, I was drawn to yoga’s promise of inner calm. This was in the 1960s and '70s when most North Americans associated yoga with culturally dissonant contortions performed by skinny men in loincloths. I knew no one who practiced yoga.

As it turned out, yoga was the perfect choice for someone who had lost any sense of her own body to child abuse. I was desperate for some way of relaxing the spasms in my shoulder, neck and back muscles. In my yoga class, I was safe and separate on my own mat. There was no competition. No one was watching. For the first time in my life it was safe to concentrate on what was happening in my body. I was fascinated.

As the months went by, my muscles firmed up. I felt more energetic and even peaceful for hours at a time. I was hooked. It was possible to imagine another way of being: a way that was relaxed and joyful.

Today, there are many types of yoga available. You can choose the one you prefer. Classical hatha yoga was what I found and later taught. After class I always felt soft and loving toward the world. I also studied Iyengar yoga which the founder, B.K.S. Iyengar, designed for the western body. It is strengthening and emotionally grounding. By contrast, following a class I always felt ready to take on the world. There are many other varieties. Shop around until you find the one that suits you.

Back when I was a yoga teacher, adults did not generally go to fitness classes. People like me were attracted to yoga, people who had never been keen on sports or exercising. Maybe this is because we associated breathing heavily from physical effort with the terror we once felt.

Today there are so many types of fitness classes. The choice is infinite. But I still think yoga offers remarkable healing power to those who were traumatized as children. Yoga teaches us mindfulness, the opposite of dissociation. In yoga classes you learn how to relax your own tension and change your emotional state with your breathing. Yoga puts you into a friendly partnership with your own body. This in itself is uniquely beneficial.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Dreams tell it like it is

Dreams, even if they’re bizarre or scary, are always benign. At the very least, they release feelings we haven’t been able to handle during the day. Dreams serve to keep us emotionally healthy.

Unless we’ve learned to control our usual bias, a scary dream will frighten us just as it would if we were awake. If we don’t know how to control our usual response to the story the dream brings, the message will escape us. Dr. Eugene Gendlin’s book Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams explains how to get beyond our usual reaction so that we get to the actual message.

I believe our dreams often try to get our attention. Maybe there’s something we’re ignoring and need to be aware of.

In my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, I cite the recurring nightmare my mother had when my sister and I were children. For me, it falls into the category of a dream that was attempting to make her aware that her child was being sexually abused. Unfortunately for me, my mother remained bewildered by the bad dream.

Throughout my youth my mother often told us about a disturbing, recurrent nightmare. It was always the same. She, her mother, my sister, and I were in a pastoral, grassy setting in the sunshine. The children were gamboling like lambs in the long grass. Suddenly there was a sinister change. Something was terribly wrong. The sky darkened and the long grass was wet and slimy. My mother was repulsed and horrified. She couldn’t stand the feeling of the wet grass on her legs. She tried to find her children, who were in great danger. She always wakened in a cold sweat from the nightmare. (p.180)

Too bad for me that my mother didn’t learn to interpret her own dreams. If the dream had managed to break through her denial, maybe she’d have protected me from the men in the family.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Dreams - our guides for living fullly

Dreams can bring us messages from our deepest, wisest selves. Maybe our heads can’t figure out what’s best for us, but somewhere inside we know what we need to do.
When our conscious controls are off while we’re sleeping, our dreams can guide us to the right decision.
 
It was 1983. I was trying to find a way to be with my spiritual teacher that respected my need to be true to myself. I was trying to decide whether I needed to change the nature of our guru-disciple relationship. This is what I dreamed.
 
A big, majestic bird is curled up in my abdomen. It grows to fill my neck and thorax with its body. Then I feel relief. A message comes. You have to let it fly. Don’t keep it inside. There’s a sense of a hundred birds flying up and out of me. A feeling of lightness and freedom.
 
The dream seemed to tell me that I needed to be free of my guru, but I needed to be sure. The next night I asked for a dream that would clarify the first. (You can ask for a dream about a particular issue just as you’re falling asleep.)

Here is what I dreamed: I open a window. There is a storm window, a second pane of glass. A large bird has been held between the two panes. It is dead and falls to the ground as I open the window. It seems to be a large seagull. I feel no remorse. It was dead before I got here, being held up by two panes.
  
Commentary: Birds are free. They fly above it all. They have a heightened perspective. My bird can’t soar.
 
Conclusion: I was ready for a new stage in my life, one of freedom to connect to my own wisest self.  

 

Friday, May 21, 2010

Basking in a warm glow

This morning I wakened with a sense of delicious happiness. Ah yes, my warm glow had to do with the amazing launch for my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist. The book launch was weeks ago, but this is the first time I’ve been able to bask in the pleasure of recalling that evening in the auditorium of Women’s College Hospital.
 
Right after the launch, I left for two weeks in Germany where I’d booked my flight and registered for the annual International Focusing Conference months ago. The timing wasn’t great. It allowed no time to simply reflect on and luxuriate in the memories of the launch. The launch was over and the next thing I knew, I was packing all the copies of Confessions of a Trauma Therapist I could possibly carry in my suitcase, backpack and a Loblaw shopping bag, and heading for the airport.
 
Back to this morning: My mind goes over and over all the faces who came to break the silence and tell the terrible secrets of child abuse. In my mind’s eye I see the hundreds who came to support those who are on a healing path. Since the launch, I’ve had the chance to speak to a number of people for whom the evening opened new understanding of child abuse and its impact on the lives of its victims. And I’ve heard from the victims who have fresh determination to heal from their own invisible wounds. Survivors, those who are dealing with their abuse have told me they have fresh insights into what’s needed for healing.
 
I’m hearing, too, of people who were there whom I missed seeing. And, as I lie in bed first thing in the morning, I go over and over recalling all the wonderful people who crowded into the auditorium on that magic evening.
 
With support and caring like that, surely child abuse will one day become a bizarre and ugly relic of the past, something people know occurred historically, but can no longer exist in the current atmosphere of vigilance and caring for children.  
 

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Hear Mary's CKLN radio interview

Click on the headline above to download Mary's radio interview with CKLN host Stephanie Dickison about Mary's new book on healing from childhood incest Confessions of a Trauma Therapis.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Germany: a traumatized nation

For many years I traveled to Germany to teach about psychological trauma at the Focusing Zentrum Karlsruhe. A psychotherapist has a unique window into the society in which she lives. My years of teaching psychotherapy skills in Germany allowed some very special insights into this foreign country’s history.

Germans suffered terribly from both the first and the second world wars. War, however, is not the crux of their suffering. The trauma begins with German child rearing. I believe that traditional German child rearing is responsible for Germany’s history of wartime atrocities.

Germany has a well-documented history of intentional cruelty and shaming of children dating back to the1750’s. Well meaning parents followed the advice of “experts” who told them how to raise an obedient child. What mattered was that the child would grow into a citizen who would obey orders. To this end, crying babies were shaken to scare them into never making their needs known. Children were shamed and beaten to make sure they never followed their own feelings and wishes.

No one who benefited from secure attachment as a child could have carried out the brutal orders German soldiers inflicted on their victims. As a result of their childhoods, they had no access to their own feelings. If you can’t experience your own feelings, how can you empathize with others?

The lesson for all of us is this: If we want to live in a peaceful world, we need to take great care to raise our children with love and caring.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

How our brains protect us

I’m in Germany where I have been teaching the participants at the annual International Focusing Conference how our brains protect us from whatever is too terrible to assimilate into consciousness.

I explained that normal memory, like the memory of being in my workshop, is an explicit memory. That is, it has details. They will remember much of what I said, who was there and so on.

On the other hand, implicit memory, as in traumatic memory, is carried in the body. It lacks a narrative and details.

A normal event is first registered by the thalamus of the brain, then goes to the amygdala and then to the hippocampus for storage. However, if the event is traumatic, the amygdala acts as a watchdog and doesn’t pass it on to the hippocampus for storage. That means that maybe there never was a whole memory. The memory might fragment into pieces that are visual or olfactory, but lack a context.

The mind doesn’t know about the terrible event, but the body does. Fear is the major emotion of trauma. Anxiety and depression result, even though the person cannot attach a reason for the disturbance.

Time does not heal traumatic memory. The feelings are in the present. It seems as if something terrible or threatening is happening in the present – or is about to happen. The task for psychotherapy or any type of healing is to put the past into the past. This means changing the way the brain experiences your existence.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

How can you forget something so terrible?

I’m in Germany at the International Focusing Conference. Today I gave a workshop on traumatic memory. The theme was why it’s possible to have no memory of terrifying events.

First, I wanted the participants to be clear on the definition of “traumatic.” Often people use the term to describe a memory that is merely bad or painful. A traumatic event has to be (1)inescapable and (2)intolerable.

Our natural impulse when something threatens us is to go into a state of fight or flight. If we can’t fight and we can’t flee, we freeze or dissociate.

Normal children are capable of dissociating in order to survive. Dissociation is learned at an early age and is a highly developed skill. I tell my clients that yogis go into a cave for years to learn this skill.

What does it feel like to dissociate? Some people describe it as looking at the world through a pane of glass while feeling nothing. Others float on the ceiling and look down at what seems to be happening to somebody else. Yet another common form of dissociation involves simply leaving the body and feeling nothing.

At one time, dissociation spared us from feeling the full impact of a situation we couldn’t tolerate. Otherwise we wouldn’t be capable of this advanced mind/body control. It allowed us to participate in some parts of normal childhood, such as going to school.

In a nutshell, our brains are designed to assure the survival of our species. Dissociation deserves our respect.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Germany and child sexual abuse

I’m writing this from Germany where I’m experiencing a sort of déjà vu with regard to child sexual abuse. I’m reminded of what was happening in North America years ago when victims first started coming forward to accuse The Christian Brothers and other priests of having sexually abused the vulnerable children in their care.

Everyone I talk to here, every newspaper I see, and all the radio stations – they’re all shocked and angry about the recent charges against the Roman Catholic priests.

That’s how it began in North America. The unthinkable became thinkable. Victims of boarding schools then began disclosing their sexual abuse at the hands of teachers. Pandora’s Box got opened even more when individuals started reporting being sexually abused in their own homes.

I believe that Germany—as Canada twenty years ago—is just beginning to realize the extent of child sexual abuse in its midst

By now in North America, it’s not too difficult for most people to believe that sexual abuse happens in the slums to poor, unloved children. It’s harder to accept that middle class children of prosperous, seemingly “good” families can suffer sexual abuse at the hands of the adults who are supposed to be protecting them. Our discomfort is increased by the fact that we’re more likely to identify with these middle class victims.

Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, my memoir, tells of a middle class girl from an affluent family who seems to have everything a North American girl could want. I think that’s important. Child sexual abuse, although we might prefer to allocate it to the poor, knows no class or socio-economic boundary.

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Confessions goes to Germany

As I write this, I am attending the annual International Focusing Conference in the Black Forest of Germany.

I have just given a presentation about childhood trauma. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I knew I planned to read from my book to illustrate how lost memories surface. And I knew I wanted them to hear about the actual breaking through of my awareness of sexual abuse at the hands of my father and grandfather.But I wasn’t prepared for how moving and moved the participants would be.

In the room there were of course Germans, then Greeks, Italians, one Palestinian, Brits, Netherlanders, French, Spanish, Belgians and many other nations represented. Most of these countries are just beginning to deal with the presence of child abuse in their societies. The recent sexual abuse charges against the Roman Catholic church here in Germany has stirred awareness of the prevalence of child sexual abuse.

After my reading, no one spoke. There was absolute silence for many minutes. I looked around the room. The eyes were closed or they sat pensively staring at a spot on the floor. I could only assume that each person was having his or her personal experience touched off by my very honest disclosures.

This was one more step in sending Confessions of A Trauma Therapist out into the world to plant whatever seeds find fertile soil. That’s what I wish for my book: to be heard and taken in by those who need to hear my message.

Today’s presentation felt like one more small step to reach out and help our world deal effectively with this crime against children.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Book launch memories of Frank

One of the most moving memories of the book launch centre around my son, Frank. From the speaker’s podium, Frank spoke of the years when he had first been helping me shape Confessions of a Trauma Therapist into a book. He said he would cry for hours over what his grandfather and great grandfather had done to his mother. I was really deeply touched. I had no idea it had been so painful for him to take in my traumatic childhood.

When he was a little guy, I experienced his childhood as a wonderful time in my own life. He was growing up protected and loved. My heart swelled to see him approach teachers and other adults without fear. He knew he was a good person and worthy of respect. The contrast with my own fearful childhood was profound.

And he knew that his very busy father would drop everything to be with him if he was in trouble. I often contemplated how different life would be for me if Harvey had been my father.

For those of us who were abused as children, watching our own grow up untraumatized helps set things right inside us. All parents vicariously reexperience their own youth through their offspring. By becoming parents, survivors of childhood trauma have the opportunity to know what “right” looks and feels like in childhood.

There is one thing that never occurred to me when I was a mother to a child. I would never have imagined that my child would grow up to be a best friend and a strong, wise support in my life.

I am so thankful for this lovely man who is still in my life.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Memories of the Launch

My mind is filled with the scenes and feelings of the book launch that took place a few days ago when Confessions of a Trauma Therapist got birthed and went out into the world. Its mission? To help the victims of child sexual abuse and expose this crime against children.

A kaleidoscope of remembered hugs, greetings, old friends and colleagues, as well as the faces of those who came to hear that it’s possible to recover from childhood trauma – these experiences tumble over and over in my memory.

The book’s conclusion tells about foreseeing the book launch in a dream I had back in 1999.

I am a singer standing alone on the stage of a huge concert hall. My voice soars, filling the hall with its richness. The sound seems to wrap around each person sitting there. A rich contralto rises up effortlessly from my belly.

Then my song finishes and the crowd cheers, deeply moved by my voice. I step off the stage to join Harvey. He and I greet hundreds of audience members whom we recognize as survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

My heart goes out to them as I encourage them to go on with their healing. Then come their friends and supporters, followed by their helping professionals. All of us are joined in the work of healing past traumas and in the fight to prevent child sexual abuse in the future.


That is my dream, my vision and my hope in writing about my own history of incest. Never mind that I can’t hold a tune. The dream may be counter-factual, but it certainly matches how I feel about Confessions of a Trauma Therapist.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

The first book signing

I was still on a high from Wednesday evening’s amazing book launch when I walked into the scene of the annual conference of Canada’s EMDR therapists on Friday. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is a trauma treatment I describe in Confessions of a Trauma Therapist.

Loaded down with cloth shopping bags of books, I made my way from the parking lot to the scene of the conference. I could hear the speaker at the morning session winding down in the large ballroom to my left. I set myself up at the table which was positioned to catch people as they left the session and settled in to sell and autograph my books. Through the impressive doors of the ballroom, I heard the microphone saying there was somebody selling books or something outside the door. She’d been asked to announce it. Wrong name, nothing about my book, not even the title or the relevance to the conference.

The participants flooded out from the morning session. Most didn’t even notice me sitting there trying to look friendly. A few stared with curiosity, then decided it was nothing that concerned them. The only books I sold and signed were to people I already knew and who intended to buy my book anyway.

Oh well, live and learn. It’s the sort of experience that keeps us humble.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Letter from Charron

At the age when little girls have a best friend, Charron who lived across the street was my inseparable buddy. We’ve kept in touch all these years. Charron lives in Nantuckett, has five children and numerous grandchildren. When we meet we still feel a closeness and caring based on that early bonding.

I’ve been carrying around the letter Charron sent me some weeks ago when she heard about the publication of Confessions of a Trauma Therapist. Here’s part of it.

Dear Mary K
I am so proud of you! Just imagine the distance you have travelled. It’s hard for me to come to grips with your trauma. You certainly had me fooled.


Once, years ago, Charron wrote in another letter that she’d always envied my life when we were children. Her family was struggling financially and her stressed-out mother was working long hours to save their family bakery. I lived in the big house across the street with a mother who welcomed Charron and was always available.

By the time Charron wrote about wishing she had lived in the big house, I had my memories of sexual abuse. I remember writing back cautioning Charron to be careful what she wished for. She was one of the first people to whom I disclosed my sad history.

We’ve both grown into successful older women. Charron, as her friend Mary K, is still married to the same man after close to 50 years. We both have loving relationships with our offspring and we’re both living affluent lifestyles. Not bad for a couple of little girls who spent hours every day dressing up and pretending to be ballerinas, movie stars or whatever took our fancy.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Confessions book launch draws crowd of almost 200!

What an incredible night it was! Yes, the books did arrive in the early afternoon. And all went smoothly after that.

The auditorium of Women’s College Hospital was filled to overflowing with the wonderful people who joined me in launching Confessions of a Trauma Therapist.

One of the best parts of organizing the book launch was hearing from old friends and seeing so many people who matter to me at the launch itself.

Michele Landsberg commented that any author would envy the amazing turnout for the launch. She told us of her work as a young reporter when she encountered so many women wanting to tell her about their abuse because they knew she would listen and believe.

Sylvia Fraser described in gripping detail how her memories of incest surfaced. Sylvia’s book My Father’s House was published in 1987 before most people knew about sexual abuse.

Tina Sanders praised WRAP (Women Recovering From Abuse), the wonderful group therapy programme she attended at Women’s College Hospital. Eva-Marie Stern, the WRAP art therapist, followed Tina.

Then my husband and my son, those two wonderful men in my life, spoke of their experiences with me as their wife and mother. My son’s love and sincerity moved me to tears. He is a best friend.

Boris Mischenko played his guitar and sang for us. The programme ended with the whole auditorium clapping along to Boris’s great music.

All of this was shaped and created by Judy Steed and myself. In between speakers I read from my book. Judy has an amazing sense of shaping a workshop, a presentation – and as we saw last night – a book launch. She’s my dear friend and we’re used to being together as a team running workshops.

After eight years of work, the book is finally available. If you missed last night, you can purchase a book online on Amazon at this web address:
http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Trauma-Therapist-Healing-Transformation/dp/1926645197/

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Today is my book launch!

I’ve been telling readers of my blog that I was in a blissful state of calm about my coming book launch.

Well, all that bliss got shattered a few days ago when I still didn’t have any books for the book launch.

Imagine! A book launch with no books! My trust in the universe and my assurance that if I just did everything in my power, it would all turn out just as it was meant to – all that faith turned into an internal windstorm of sleepless nights and a stressed body.

It’s many years since I’ve felt electrical charges of nervous energy tightening my muscles and turning this usually relaxed and happy body into a minefield of doubt and worry. It was an unpleasant reminder of how my body felt most of the time before I healed from childhood trauma.

Today – the very day of the launch – my publisher promises my books will arrive in time for tonight’s celebration. I got the news late yesterday and slept the whole night through in a state of relaxed gratitude and relief. My faith in the universe is restored.

This evening at the launch those books will go out into the hands of people who have been waiting for them. For me, it’s the fulfillment of my life’s work, getting what I know from personal experience and from my 30 years of studying and treating trauma into the hands, hearts and minds of others. I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity life has given me.

Now if only those books arrive on time...

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

I was the smartest of the dumb bunnies

Childhood trauma is cumulative. You start out being traumatized by the original abuse. Then, each stage of life piles on more bad experiences. As a child, I couldn’t clear my head to think. This excerpt from Confessions of a Trauma Therapist describes my life in grade three.

Grade three was the year the class was divided into two. Smart kids got to do grade four work, skipping a grade. Dumb kids sat in separate rows doing grade three stuff. I was held back with the dumb kids.

I dreaded telling my parents. Standing in front of them that evening, I looked for a way to soften the blow.

“Well,” I assured them, “I’m the smartest of the dumb bunnies.”

My father howled with laughter, doubled over, smoker’s cough erupting, breathless with the hilarity of it. That was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Smartest of the dumb bunnies! Ha, ha, ha!

My mother shared his amusement, albeit less raucously.

As for me, I just slunk away, relieved they weren’t mad at me. Nobody ever asked me how I felt. I don’t remember my parents ever mentioning it again.

My friends went on with the smart kids and I stayed behind. By the time I got to high school, I was already older and feeling more sophisticated than my classmates especially the late-maturing boys. When I was sixteen, I tried to makeup for the lag by choosing an older boyfriend. His interest in me may have soothed one part of my battered ego, but the fact that I couldn’t say no to his sexual urges made me feel even worse about myself.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Travelling around with my father

Here is an excerpt from Confessions of a Trauma Therapist describing my camping trips and visits to cottage country with my father.

I was aware and at the same time I wasn’t aware that my father’s frequent stops to open the trunk of the car were making him more and more drunk. He kept a red metal Coke cooler there with a block of ice and glass bottles of Coke. He would drink a bit from the bottle, pour in a belt of rye and continue sipping and driving until the next stop.

The more he drank, the more my head fuzzed over. That’s how my brain protected me from being terrified of the danger I was in, driving with this drunken protector. In fact, I was angry with the people along the way who snickered at his slurred speech and wobbly gait. It never occurred to me to be mad at him. I realize now that those amused stares from passersby threatened to pry open my reality: that I was with a man who was not a proper guardian for a child.

I remember being embarrassed by his attempts to impress the blonde waitress at the soda counter in the Port Carling drug store. I wanted to explain to her that my father was really a very nice man. And when we stayed overnight at the cottage of one of my mother’s friends, I resented her wanting to take care of me. Her solicitous attention made it clear she considered my father an unsuitable caregiver for a seven-year-old child.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

When Father came marching home

Here is another excerpt from my book about father-daughter incest.

In 1945 when I was seven, the war ended and the men came home. What a strange time for the world. It was an era of post-traumatic stress disorders from the horrors of war. And for many it was a time of marital stress from too many years of living separate lives.

I don’t know how my parents’ marriage would have been different if it hadn’t been interrupted by the war. And I don’t know if my father would have relied less on rye and Coke to face his world. He had always been a party boy, but after the war he was seldom sober.

Each time he returned home during the war years I had initially been scared of him. He was huge. He could lift me up with one hand. Mostly I remember his smell. It was different from anyone else’s: a nose-tingling blend of the rough khaki wool of his scratchy uniform, the whisky on his breath and the ever-present Export A in his mouth.

Once he had been with us for a day or two, my shyness faded and I delighted in climbing into his giant lap.

When he returned home for good I experienced a strange mixture of fear and intense love. I wanted to be with him as much as possible. The most important thing in my young life was keeping Daddy happy.

Many years later, I learned he had another woman in England and that my role in the family, as my mother saw it, was to keep him home with us in Canada.

I grew up believing I was very fortunate to be my father’s companion. I thought I was lucky to go off camping with him, just the two of us.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

I was a poster child for PTSD

What’s your image of a child who’s living with sexual abuse? When you can’t run and you can’t flee, you freeze. It’s what all mammals do. Would you have recognized my frozen state?

My parents thought I was a very calm child.

“Mary Kay’s not afraid of anything,” they would boast.

Little did they realize that at the slightest hint of danger I jumped inside myself where nothing could get to me and where I wouldn’t even know what was happening. Of course I didn’t squeal or tremble. I was frozen. Somehow their parental eyes did not recognize the signs of trauma.

I still have a photograph of myself at about seven years of age, shopping in Toronto with my mother and sister. In the forties when not everyone owned a camera, street photographers made a living snapping pictures of passersby. Once they developed the pictures they mailed them to their subjects. My mother must have agreed to pay because there we are, my mother, my sister and I walking along Bloor Street. In the picture my mother and sister are striding along, oblivious to the photographer’s presence. My mother is wearing a tall hat that no doubt is meant to add stature to her five feet. Two fox skins, complete with little heads, hang around her neck to her waist, their glassy eyes staring at the sidewalk.

As for me I am the poster child of post traumatic stress disorder. My neck is pulled down into my torso. My left hand is making its way to my frightened face. My eyes are wide with terror, expecting something awful to happen. The photographer has caught me at the very moment I am disappearing inside myself.

Less than one week until book launch

As we get close to the launch of my book Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, I can hardly believe what an interesting and stimulating evening it’s going to be. The universe is certainly cooperating! Imagine having Judy Steed as MC (Judy Steed published Our Little Secret about sexual abuse in Canada), Michele Landsberg telling us some of her journey as a journalist and Sylvia Fraser speaking about her history as one of the first to write about her own incest.

Michele Landsberg wrote for The Toronto Star in the days when she was a lone voice exposing sexual violence against women and children.

Sylvia Fraser is another amazing pioneer. Imagine publishing her book My Father’s House in 1987 when society was still in total denial about the sexual abuse of children.

My husband Dr. Harvey Armstrong recognized and began treating child sexual abuse when he was a psychiatric resident at The Hincks Treatment Centre long before anyone was aware that child sexual abuse was endemic in our society.

The great irony is that even though Harvey was an expert, he didn’t recognize that his own wife suffered a dissociative disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. Harvey will speak about his experience.

It’s going to be quite a celebration of how far we’ve come in stemming the flood of child abuse.

Three days until launch day

It’s three days until my book launch for Confessions of a Trauma Therapist: A Memoir of Healing and Transformation.

Talk about telling the world! In it, I tell everything about how I recovered my lost childhood memories of incest.

Let me tell you, it’s much easier to tell the world than to tell one’s own family.

Of course, I had to alert my family to the fact that I was publishing a book about having been sexually abused by my father and his father, our dignified old grandfather.

I sent the letter to my sister, her children and their children, the youngest of whom is 19. In it, I tried to explain why I was revealing such unsavory family secrets.

I said: “I have written the book with the goal of encouraging other survivors of child sexual abuse. I want to help professionals and anyone else wanting to understand the victim’s struggles with trauma-based shame and betrayal.”

“This letter will stir some strong feelings in you. I want to hear from you when you’re ready.”

More in the next post about the fallout from my letter.

Anticipation of April 28 Confessions book launch

The book launch for my memoir Confessions of a Trauma Therapist is coming soon. It’s strange that I don’t feel anxious. I’m excited and happy, but not nervous. In fact, as I told a friend it’s like the wonderful feeling of falling in love and having a baby all at the same time. It’s as if I’m riding a huge cosmic wave. I’m just the conduit, or something. I’m fortunate enough to be bringing to all those who want to hear about child abuse my knowledge and experience. I know I have an abundance of information about healing and transforming the invisible wounds of childhood trauma into strength and positive energy.

Today I went to Women’s College Hospital to check out the auditorium. Judy Steed, my good friend and the master of ceremonies at the book launch, went with me. There are many, many details to sort out.

Where do the refreshments go and when do we have them set out? Where is the best place for the books to be sold? What’s the best place for our guest speakers, Michele Landsberg and Sylvia Fraser to sit? Where should Judy and I sit?

It’s a winding route from the front door to the auditorium, so we’ll need signs along the way. The Women Recovering From Abuse Programme will be celebrated for their amazing work with women recovering from trauma. We’ll ask participants to donate as they feel able to this worthy programme.

$5 of each book sold will also go to support WRAP.

The evening is truly a celebration of how far we have come in exposing and healing child abuse.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Daydreaming and dissociating to survive childhood incest

Victims of child sexual abuse often survive through daydreaming and dissociating. The second chapter of Confessions of a Trauma Therapist is titled “My Life Goes On Without Me.”

It starts like this:

I daydreamed my way through grade two, the year my father came home from war for good. Most of the time I imagined being the queen of the fairies. The plots varied, but had one prevailing theme. I was the beautiful, dearly loved queen who had the power to find answers to everyone’s pain. (Does that sound like the origins of a psychotherapist?)

At home I played a game over and over. I lined up my huge collection of dolls and stuffed animals. They became my pupils. I was the teacher, scolding and punishing them for being so stupid. I yelled at them and shook them as hard as I could. Nobody clued into my rage, although my mother did find my behaviour puzzling since I was never strapped or yelled at in school.

………………

“Mary Kay’s always daydreaming,” my mother often mused. It was just something I did – part of my personality – and it wasn’t a good character trait. It was something I needed to change. But I couldn’t.

I had no idea why my head fogged over and my body went numb every time I needed to think. I just knew I couldn’t shake my head clear to focus on long division or memorizing verses from the Bible.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The hidden signs of abuse – excerpt 1

How can you tell a child is being sexually abused? Child abuse takes place in secret. Are there signs? Can we, as adults, spot these children?

Here’s a quote from the beginning of my book, Confessions of a Trauma Therapist:

Looking at me during my childhood years you would have seen a spoiled rich kid always smiling and never causing any trouble. On the inside, life was different. Under a placid exterior I existed in a wet grey fog, never quite sure of what was happening around me.

Would you have realized I was dissociated? After all, unlike Precious I didn’t live in a slum. My family was affluent. They were respectable, professional people. My grandfather who sexually abused me was a proper, distinguished lawyer.

Anyone seeing Grandpa and me together in his downstairs library where leather-bound books lined the walls, would have found the scene charming. As a little girl I spent many hours a day with Grandpa while he was reading or playing Solitaire on his pedestal table. In my attempt to join him, although I had not yet learned to read, I would haul a huge tome off the shelf and pretend to be studying it.

Every once in a while I would ask him the meaning of some nonsense word of many syllables. Grandpa would observe me in all seriousness.


“How do you spell it, Mary Kay?”

I would list off a string of my favourite alphabet letters, and a serious discussion would ensue before Grandpa returned to reading his books.

Once a week, Grandpa and I took a slow walk to the library – the old man with his fedora, walking cane and an armful of books, and the little girl with the long blonde curly hair and a big bow tied at the back of her short dress. It must have been a touching sight. Grandpa always took out four new books a week.


Certainly in those days there was no one to tell because back then nobody “knew” that child sexual abuse even existed.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

The terror of telling

When I knew Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, my story of suffering from incest, was about to be published, I had to alert my family members.

Most of them had no idea I’d been sexually abused as a child by my father and grandfather.

It’s always hard to tell these terrible secrets, and it’s hardest to tell your own family because you’re telling them about their family too. I screwed up my courage and wrote them all a letter.

Waiting to hear from them after I mailed the letter was agony.

First to respond was my sister who had known – and dismissed - my questionable memories of child sexual abuse. She was kind and expressed sadness for my suffering. (which I interpreted as feeling sorry for my suffering, whether or not anything had actually happened.)

Next came a really loving response from a nephew and his wife. Their concern was for me. Of course it had never occurred to them that I had spent much of my life fearful and depressed as a result of childhood trauma. Survivors are so good at looking good!

The next nephew also expressed his surprise that his strong, competent aunt could ever have suffered. He promised to get back to me when he had time to absorb this new view of Aunt Mary. I’ve not heard from him since.

One of his two daughters sent me a loving and compassionate email. I was touched by her sincerity and caring for her great aunt.

Another nephew can’t bear to talk with me about it. It’s too painful. Maybe it touches on some of his own childhood wounds.

My own son has known about my history of incest for over twenty years. He’s been a sympathetic, intelligent companion in my healing.

I wonder – can anyone but a person who suffered the betrayal of child abuse – ever understand how scary it is to tell?

Ten days till launch day

It’s less than two weeks until my book launch for Confessions of a Trauma Therapist: A Memoir of Healing and Transformation.

Talk about telling the world! In it, I tell everything about how I recovered my lost childhood memories of incest.

Let me tell you, it’s much easier to tell the world than to tell one’s own family.

Of course, I had to alert my family to the fact that I was publishing a book about having been sexually abused by my father and his father, our dignified old grandfather.

I sent the letter to my sister, her children and their children, the youngest of whom is 19. In it, I tried to explain why I was revealing such unsavory family secrets.

I said, “I have written the book with the goal of encouraging other survivors of child sexual abuse. I want to help professionals and anyone else wanting to understand the victim’s struggles with trauma-based shame and betrayal.”

“This letter will stir some strong feelings in you. I want to hear from you when you’re ready.”

Why would I inflict such painful news on innocent family members? After all, they are not the perpetrators. The adults who betrayed me are long dead.

Here’s the reason: I believe the truth sets us free. For the rest of the world, I believe my story is a healing one, one I need to tell.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Telling our secrets

These days, I’ve been acutely aware of how frightening it is for those of us who were sexually abused as children to tell our stories. In less than a month, I’ll be launching my book Confessions of a Trauma Therapist: A memoir of Healing and Transformation. I’ll be telling the whole world (or anyone who reads the book) about my family secrets. I’m an expert in helping those suffering from childhood trauma to heal from their past.

And yet, these nights my own nightmares fill me with the terror of my mother’s rage for telling what went on in our “nice” family even though my mother died a long time ago. The plot varies in my nightmares. The emotion is always the same. I’m in danger and I’m terrified.

Every cell of the body seems to warn most survivors against disclosing. Many of us carried secrets that were so terrible that we ourselves forgot them and lived a dissociated existence. We survived by fogging over when anything touching on memory surfaced.

But even when it’s no longer dangerous, the body still seems to hold the dread of telling. Something terrible will happen to us if we clear our heads and tell our stories. It’s just one more of the ways in which the original betrayal impacts on and limits our lives.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Healing from Child Abuse through Positive Relationships

Mary K. Armstrong is the author of Confessions of a Trauma Therapist and is a social work psychotherapist specializing in treating childhood trauma. Here she speaks about how to heal from child abuse through positive relationships. This is one of eight guidelines for healing from Mary's book.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Healing From Child Sexual Abuse - Learning to Trust

Confessions of a Trauma Therapist author Mary K. Armstrong provides guidelines for healing from child sexual abuse. Mary is a social work psychotherapist specializing in trauma and she is a survivor of child sexual abuse.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Healing From Child Sexual Abuse - Learning to Trust

TRUST is a big issue for anyone who suffered child abuse.  Survivors tend to fall into two categories:  those who trust everybody and those who trust nobody.  When you think about it, neither style represents true trust. 

It’s no wonder trust is a big issue for those of us who were neglected or abused as children.   When we were vulnerable and helpless, the very adults who were supposed to be looking after us, betrayed us.  Lacking models of trustworthy people, we never learned who was safe to trust.

What is real trust and how do you know somebody’s trustworthy?  This is important to learn.  If you didn’t learn it as a small child, you can get the hang of it as an adult.  To discover whether you can trust someone, you need to observe people over time. Observing a person in many different situations gradually lets you know how he or she treats others.  Is this a person who tells lies in order to get his way or cheats when she thinks she won’t get caught?  Does this person recognize and respect others’ feelings?  Does he or she remain loyal to friends?  Check it out.  Be an astute observer.

My next post will be about survivors and relationships.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

How knowledge of child sex abuse retreated into the shadows


Within a year of announcing his discovery that child sexual abuse was the underlying cause of hysteria, Sigmund Freud repudiated his findings because of public opinion.

He’d told the world that child sexual abuse was the cause of dissociation and behaviours we associate with trauma.  In other words, child sexual abuse was a very common experience.

In his book Freud, A Life For Our Times, Peter Gay explains that Freud could not afford to offend the influential men of his century.  As well, he had a family to support and needed referrals for his practice as an analyst. Perhaps most of all, Freud craved fame.

As a result, he stopped listening to his patients.  He still focused on their sexuality, but no longer acknowledged the exploitation and abuse they had suffered. 

This drove him to invent his convoluted theory that his women patients imagined and longed for the abusive sexual encounters of which they complained.  Freud announced, “I was at last obliged to recognize that these scenes of seduction had never taken place, and they were only fantasies which my patients had made up.”

And so it is that the prevalence of child sexual abuse went back into the shadows until our own time.  Now it is our job to make sure it never lurks in secrecy again. 
Child abuse can exist only if we deny it and refuse to see the signs. 

My future posts will contain guidelines to help you, your friends or your clients heal from childhood trauma.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Freud exposed child abuse 100 years ago


This article continues the discussion of how child sexual abuse was uncovered and then buried again, this time over 100 years ago by Sigmund Freud (who had discovered that child sexual abuse was the cause of hysteria.)

In 1896, Freud shocked his peers when he presented his paper “The Etiology of Hysteria” in which he unequivocally stated that the origin of hysteria lay in child sexual abuse.  By simply listening to his women patients, Freud heard their stories of sexual assault, abuse and incest.  Following back the thread of memory, Freud and his patients uncovered traumatic events of childhood underlying more recent, often relatively trivial experiences that had actually triggered the onset of hysterical symptoms in the present.

Judith Herman says:
“A century later, this paper still rivals contemporary clinical descriptions of the effects of childhood sexual abuse.  It is a brilliant, compassionate, eloquently argued, closely reasoned document.  Its triumphant  title and exultant tone suggest Freud viewed his contribution as the crowning achievement in the field.”

Freud couldn’t have been clearer or more certain when he presented his eighteen case studies.  “I therefore put forward the thesis that at the bottom of every case of hysteria there are one or more occurrences of premature sexual experiences, occurrences which belong to the earliest years of childhood, but which can be reproduced through the work of psycho-analysis in spite of intervening decades.”

So what happened?  Here we have a clear understanding of childhood sexual trauma as the underlying cause of the signs and symptoms recognized as “hysteria.”  Where did that clarity go?   How come society denied the sad reality of what was being done to its children? 

My next post will unravel the mystery.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Society forgot about child sexual abuse


Why did our society forgot all about the prevalence of child sexual abuse until recently? This, despite it being perfectly understood in the 1890s.

In the 1890s, Sigmund Freud in Vienna and Pierre Janet in Paris were two influential figures who brought new awareness to the strange mental disease their peers called hysteria.  Most physicians believed hysteria was a disease only women could get because it originated in the uterus.  The name meant "wandering uterus."   

Both men declared the condition to be caused by psychological, physical and sexual trauma.  Unbearable emotional reactions to traumatic events produced an altered state of consciousness, which in turn induced hysterical symptoms.  Janet called these alterations in consciousness “dissociation.” 

They also found that hysterical symptoms could be alleviated when the traumatic memories, along with the intense feelings that accompanied them, were recovered and put into words. 

Janet was the great French neurologist in the ancient Parisian asylum, Salpetriere.  His benign, insightful leadership continued until World War I.  Sadly, the psychological world later forgot about dissociation and trauma.  Janet himself, who never did abandon his theory and never retreated from his hysterical patients, lived to see his works forgotten and his ideas neglected by those who followed him.

By the First World War, soldiers subjected to unremitting horrors of trench warfare, began to break down in shocking numbers.  Confined and rendered helpless, subjugated to constant threat of annihilation, and forced to witness the mutilation and death of their comrades without any hope of reprieve, many soldiers began to act like “hysterical women.”  They screamed and wept uncontrollably.  They froze and could not move.  They became mute and unresponsive.  They lost their memory and their capacity to feel.  They were called cowards and shot by their own officers.  (For more read Judith Herman’s excellent book: Trauma and Recovery.)
            
Clearly, anyone facing intolerable stress and inescapable horrors could develop the symptoms of what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   

My next post continues with Sigmund Freud’s role in committing himself to his belief that child sexual abuse was the origin of hysteria. 

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Invisible abuse identified in 1890s

If you’re reading this blog, you probably have your eyes open to the fact that childhood sexual abuse is endemic in our society.  And you probably wonder how this crime against society, so seamlessly woven into the very fabric of our existence, still lurks in the shadows.  How come we haven’t stamped it out? 

Please join me in my life’s mission to bring child abuse out into the open.  That’s the only way to stop it.  Secrecy, dissociated memories, denial and shame of telling allow these crimes against children to fester in the dark. 

Child abuse is our world’s best-kept secret, and it’s happening everywhere right under our noses.   Conservative statistics tell us one in four females in North America is sexually abused before the age of eighteen.  (The figures are somewhat lower for males.)  That means we all know personally people who have suffered this childhood trauma. 

Vast segments of our population have had their lives bent out of shape by predatory adults.  These victims often suffer from what George Orwell called “double think.” They know and at the same time, they don’t know they’ve been cheated of a normal life.  Their bodies carry the memories and the trauma abuse shapes their behavior.  Yet consciously they know nothing about how the adults they trusted betrayed them.

This bad news is certainly not unique to our century.  In the 1890s, Sigmund Freud in Vienna and Pierre Janet in Paris fully understood the prevalence of child sexual abuse and recognized how victims have no memory of the experience. 

My next post will tell how the awareness of Sigmund Freud and Pierre Janet got lost in the mists of time.