Child Abuse Survivor

(ed. note: Another in the long line of reviews from our English correspondent, and erstwhile bookworm. As always, if you’re interested in submitting your own review for the other readers, feel free to drop me an email. I couldn’t possibly find time to read all these books myself!)

The Seduction of Children by Christiane Sanderson is a reference book aimed at parents, teachers and others with a childcare angle to their life, with a mission to arm them with the knowledge that will better protect children from abuse.

It starts well by busting established myths on the subject and replacing them with the most recent research on the realities up to the book’s 2004 publication date.

It’s not an easy or fast read, especially not for survivors who may find themselves either unhappy about being identified in the list of symptoms and behaviours listed in later chapters. From my point of view, since it pointed to my past and issues which had already been processed through therapy it wasn’t overly upsetting to see it confirmed by at least one more professional.

What really detracts from the book is the repetition of certain points towards the end which end up as padding, we’re hardly likely to forget how many people are left to investigate from the UK’s largest anti-paedophile operation up to 2004, so why tell us twice, and underline the fact that it’s underfunded, three times? Twice the author states that she does not wish to demonise paedophiles, when the correct point to make is that she does not have to – society will do that for her. Repeating that point and the one about the community having to take as much responsibility for the perpetrators of abuse as the victims will also be an irritant to the survivor/client (or it was to me anyway). It ends with the call/wish for children to have the right to live in a world free from exploitation. On one hand after such a grueling read you understand Sanderson wanting to end the book on a more positive note, but a survivor will shrug their shoulders knowing their reality.

Preaching aside, the book is useful to read at least to see the kind of external view that might have been formed about you as a male survivor in this decade. Do what I did though and get this book out of the library, the same publisher has launched a book specifically regarding adult male survivors and that would probably be worth buying if you fall into that category. This book’s better for reminding you how far you’ve come or how much further you have to go if you’re in therapy at present. It will challenge you and it won’t be a flick-read, some you’ll identify and agree with, the rest will make you question your own views or plain irritate you, but give it a try for free from your library unless you have free access to it by working in education.

Tamara put it better than I ever could, but I wanted to echo her thoughts on how much it means to have fellow survivors involved in this site, and their own sites, sharing their stories, and generally making all of us survivors feel a little less alone in our journey.

I don’t often find the time to get around and comment on as many survivor blogs as I should, but I do want to take the time to let many of you know that I do follow along and you are in my thoughts. We’re in this together, and we will survive.

Over at Psych Central they’ve launched a new blog, devoted to Bipolar disorder. I don’t suffer from bipolar disorder myself, but I know many of you do, and a quick look at the new site gives me the impression that it’s going to be quite good. I’m sure it’ll be just as informative and educational as the current one over on the Psych Central site. I’d definitely recommend stopping by, or subscribing to Bipolar Beat.

Also, keep an eye on the Psych Central blog as they have other plans:

Don’t have bipolar? We plan on launching additional topical blogs in the weeks to come, including blogs on depression and ADHD.

Psych Central today mentioned a Men’s Health article written by Adam Duritz, of Counting Crows fame. It caught my eye because, in it, Adam talks about his struggles with dissociation, something that I have had problems with in the past, and something I don’t tend to see written about very often, outside of the more obvious cases of multiple personality disorder. (Which is a form of dissociative disorder, but one on the far end of the spectrum that starts with simple things like highway hypnosis)

I was glad to see someone writing about something that was very similar to what I experienced, shutting down during difficult or stressful times:

This was not depression. This was not workaholism. I have a fairly severe mental illness that makes it hard to do my job — in fact, makes me totally ill suited for my job. I have a form of dissociative disorder that makes the world seem like it’s not real, as if things aren’t taking place. It’s hard to explain, but you feel untethered.

I agree, it is hard to explain. If you’ve never felt like this, I’ve always described it as the difference between something happening to you, and watching it happen on TV to someone else. When you have this disorder, you don’t see any difference between those two things.

Thank you Adam, for having the courage to talk about it publicly!

(ed. Another review from our English friend, who adds: you can still read the intro on Amazon’s British site, don’t know if the American side has the same;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Altar-Story-Homosexual-Catholic-church/dp/1844880397/ref=pd_ys_iyr3)

Though we’ve read and watched a lot of newspaper and documentary reports on the subject, I find it hard to relate to religiously organised, systematic child abuse as happened in the Catholic Church in either Ireland or elsewhere in the world, if that wasn’t the specific circumstance of your abuse then it takes books like these to even give you an idea.

However that does not limit the book’s potential audience at all, giving a firsthand victim’s-eye view of what such abuse can do to a previously solid and unquestioning faith. What Altar Boy does show is that the indecent assault end of the abuse spectrum can become just as damaging as the more extreme kind as depicted in Cry Silent Tears by Jo Peters.

However, Madden didn’t let himself remain a victim, the book depicts his taking on the Church with the help of the media including The British Sunday Times newspaper but, once the legal action was done, we also read of the process by which he got back on with life afterwards, mistakes included.

He’s also upfront about the effects of abuse with regard to his own use of alcohol and trying his best to hold together his relationship(s). He explains his feelings as a child at the time with no self-pity and how his relationship(s) turn out is a grace of god issue, in that we couldn’t really judge what we would do under the same circumstances.

There is no fairytale ending, just pragmatism about getting on with life. The book is short and sweet (212 paperback pages) from this respect. Altar Boy is another abuse memoir where the kid on the cover is the author as a child, rather than a model and even though it’s five years old, it remains as relevant in the face of the change of Pope and the Church’s own efforts to be just a little more open on the issue (whatever you think of their efforts so far).

So it keeps selling, despite newer memoirs on the market, because it’s still relevant. Certainly give it a look in your library at the very least, because Penguin gave it the worldwide promotional treatment from launch

(ed. Our intrepid Brit book reviewer has been busy, sending me a couple of book reviews for the site this week. This is the first, I’ll post the second within the next few days. As always, if you’re interested in submitting a similar review, drop me a line.)

Andrew Crofts has helped another Brit male abuse survivor, Joe Peters, complete his first memoir, Cry Silent Tears. It’s taking nothing away from the power of Peters’ story that Crofts has turned Peters’ words into another book which can be speed-read in three hours, or taken section by section – I read its 300 hardback pages overnight and it’s as page-turning a read as Tears Before Bedtime.

Peters’ history starts with the background to his family which he believes points to much of his childhood thereafter. We read of the loss of his father as witnessed at five years old which would be a heavy trauma for any child, in fact he was struck dumb and eventually needed speech therapy to begin talking again. However, the bereavement marked the resumption of physical violence from his mother throughout his childhood and also the start of a catalogue of sexual abuse from his de facto stepfather, two siblings and a succession of other pedophiles, some known to the family and others, at the height of his abuse, in an organized child porn ring.

When told about a child condemned to living in a cellar for being perceived as different (or the runt), modern people of all ages will have only read about that as the start of a Harry Potter book or classic fairytale. For Joe Peters it was the very bleak, unrelenting, nightmarish, real thing. His only elder sibling at the time who wasn’t abusive, still let Joe down in other ways when he needed him most. Further losses and abandonment of early relationships happen through the transfer of schools and the 1980s UK social care system. Childline helped him though only in a roundabout way, the care did not continue consistently or with any insight into the needs of a teenage male abuse victim.

What you read about Peters’ mother and her treatment of the abuse as a business stays in the mind for a long time, even despite the fact that Joe Peters survived and thrived to forge a happy adult life. The book ends abruptly in adolescence, pointing the way to the second book which he is currently writing. Since it’s important to know the steps taken to recover, I’ll definitely purchase the follow-up when it arrives.

The website for the book outlines the work by and for survivors which he is currently in the process of setting up and that can be found at http://www.crysilenttears.co.uk

( OR http://www.freewebs.com/crysilenttears/ as a direct link if it doesn’t auto forward. The site links to a free sample of the introduction to the book on the publisher’s website.)

This book review was sent in from our anonymous correspondent over in England. He also passed along this note:

Just for reference Childline, a free telephone number for abused and bullied kids to call for help and a listening ear, began in 1986, but within the past year, it was brought within the umbrella of the 100+ year old National Society For The Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC). I think that’s the only reference that non-Brit survivors might not understand immediately.

Matt Lowe’s book takes the autobiographical route of all 40+ years of his life, providing a before, during and after account of grooming and child abuse on a longer term scale and the frightening ease of routine with which that happened and continued. Being a bookseller’s son it shows on the page that Lowe has the writing part in his blood - he takes great care to bring his childhood haunts and stomping grounds to life to illustrate his first 20 years, and also the “waterboarding” drip-drip corrosive effect of grooming, enticement and outright emotional blackmail employed by his abuser to continue his acts.

Most importantly for survivors, Lowe also describes the steps taken to not just get help in great detail but also the career paths which opened up for him as a result. It flashes back and forward from past to present but it’s quite easy to follow and once I reached 100 pages out of 350, I decided to finish it in a single night even if it couldn’t be called a novelistic page-turner.

Most importantly for the casual reader without any “baggage” on the subject, Lowe doesn’t simplify or spare his own or anyone else’s perceived failures or missed opportunities throughout any of his life, not the way his entire family was conned by the abuser in question, to how it continued after the years of grooming with his abuser trying to call his crimes a relationship in order to “keep” him, to the childhood isolation from family and breakup of his proper adult relationship and readjustment to plain fatherhood. It doesn’t talk down to anyone else who was brainwashed and manipulated over a long period at the same time as being sexually abused.

Nowhere is there a hint of “poor me” to this book on the first reading. I essentially read it on two long sittings. I was waiting for the books’s release and bought it to keep. There’s no need for a second volume as it covers the author’s life right up to where he is at the time of printing last year. It’s a great book for British male survivors but in giving an uncompromising account of some the therapeutic steps involved, makes itself useful to survivors worldwide. I picked this up at the perfect time, one year into my healing process when I’m thinking about life after therapy, whenever that is, and The Family Friend also gives one man’s view of how you move on. 

Whenever it’s published in your home country, look it up but give it the time it deserves, it’s by no means a flick-read.

Want to have a book review posted? Feel free to pass it along to me if you don’t have your own blog to post it to, I’d be glad to spread the word!

Rick Belden, the author of Iron Man Family Outing contacted me a little while ago, offering me a free copy of his book. Unfortunately, my to be read list is getting a bit long, so in the interest of getting his generosity pointed in a direction that would be beneficial sometime this year, I declined.

However, my backlog is your good fortune. Rick has offered to give away a free copy to one of my readers. I’m going to make this simple. In exchange for the free book, you agree to write up a short review of it. You can post that review on your own blog, and let me know about it, or you can write the review and send it to me, and I’ll be more than happy to post it here.

So, if you’re interested, and want to know more about the book, check the link below. The first one to comment here, gets it. Be sure to enter an email address in your comment. It doesn’t get posted to the site, but I’ll need it to  put you in contact with Rick and you can arrange for him to ship you the book.

Matter of fact, if you want to review a book about child abuse, and don’t have a blog of your own, feel free to drop me a line. I’d love to add some more book reviews without having to read them all myself!

Annaleigh has the first Carnival Against Child Abuse of 2008 posted over at her site.

As always, looks like there are a number of good ideas and interesting things to read. Go take a look and if you have a blog, please consider contributing to one of the future editions. The more the merrier!

Before I begin this review, I need to apologize. Nancy Richards had sent me a copy of her book months ago, with the promise that I would read and review it here. At that time, I knew it might be some time before I had the chance to read it, and expressed that, however I really have no excuse for it taking this long. Simply put, I allowed other things to get in the way. Nonetheless, I made a promise and I am keeping it.

When Nancy first contacted me about her book, and said it was a completely different way of looking at forgiveness, I was excited to read it. As I read it, much of it seemed very similar to my own experiences, constantly being told the only true way to heal was to forgive the people who hurt me. I hated that advice, in fact, I’m convinced that advice simply did more damage to me.

When she writes about divorcing her mother, not forgiving her, but simply saying “enough is enough”, leaving for her own well being, I wanted to applaud. You rarely see anyone give survivors permission to be selfish. The bottom line is that your first priority is taking care of yourself. You’re a survivor because someone failed to take care of you as a child. Perhaps even many people failed you. As an adult, it is your job to take care of yourself. The people who tell you that you haven’t “truly” healed until you can confront your abuser, and tell them you forgive them, are more than likely setting you up to be hurt all over again.

That was why, for the majority of this book, I completely agreed with what Nancy was writing. I could see a lot of my own story in it. I recalled the conversations I had with my therapist about how I needed to decide what sort of allegiance I owed my parents, and what sort of relationship, if any, I wanted to have with my family. I remembered my own feeling of freedom when she told me I didn’t have to do anything in regards to my relationships with the person who molested me, or the parents who failed to protect me, I only had to decide what was right, safe, and healthy for me.

Once past this point in the book, however, Nancy’s story and my own deviated quite a bit. She goes on to discuss the fact that only now, after doing some immense healing, is she ready to start the process of forgiving. While I appreciated that, I’m just not sure I agree with the word, or the concept of forgiveness. If you’ll allow me to get theological for a minute here, biblically speaking forgiveness is only meted out by God when a sinner asks for it, and repents. To me, forgiveness is about reconciling our relationship with God the only way that we can, by admitting we are sinful and need His forgiveness. The call for survivors to forgive is backwards, to me. I can’t forgive and enter into a relationship with someone who will not even acknowledge the pain they caused me, in fact, who continues to cause that pain. I can only decide what boundaries need to be in place within that relationship to prevent them from hurting me. I need to take care of myself.

Now, Nancy, however, obviously defines forgiveness differently. She, and many others, regard forgiveness as “letting go” of the anger and rage directed at those people. While I can certainly understand and agree that is an important part of truly healing, I don’t call that forgiveness. In my own history, I refer to that more as the point where I quit caring about those people who hurt me. I did what I needed to do in those relationships to be safe, and quit caring about the consequences of those actions. I quit mourning the things I didn’t have, and simply accepted that this is the way things are, the way those people are. I took the steps necessary in my life to find what I was lacking previously, in a healthy way that works for me. You might call that forgiveness, and we may just be arguing semantics here, but I would love to get survivors focused off the idea of forgiving their abusers, and onto the idea of taking care of themselves first, and letting their anger and rage be replaced by the simple contentment that comes from that.

So, if you’re sick and tired of being told you need to forgive your abusers, before you’ve managed to heal yourself at all, I highly recommend taking a look at this book. It will serve as a great reminder that there are others out there struggling with the idea of forgiveness and give you the freedom to not forgive when you need it.