Just a Reminder

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

-Jesus
John 16:33, New Testament Bible (NIV)

Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to move beyond abuse

Forgiveness Doesn't Negate Damage

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Maya Angelou, writer and poet, once wrote: I answer the heroic question, "Death, where is thy sting?" with "It is here in my heart and mind and memories."

Perhaps one of the great challenges for abuse survivors is navigating through the process of forgiveness, yet still having to live with or overcome the damage. Over the years, I've had many conversations with people who aren't sure if they have "really" forgiven people. When I press for the reasons people feel this way, it almost always comes back to the harsh realities that survivors struggle with from day to day as a result of abuse. Physical problems. Dysfunctional relationships. Addictions. Rage. Nightmares. Fear. Trust issues. Sexual chaos. Depression. Self-injury. The long list of challenges faced by abuse survivors reflects very real and ongoing battles due directly and indirectly from abuse.

I think it's important to distinguish between the act of forgiveness and the ongoing damage that results from abuse. First, let me define forgiveness: Forgiveness is the decision to release yourself from the actions and injustice committed against you (whether that is abuse or some other wrong). You make a conscious decision to continue on your life journey no longer attached to these wrongs or those who committed them. For people of faith, this decision includes not only releasing yourself FROM this attachment, but also releasing the responsibilities of justice TO God. Even if you're unable to trust God - even if you do not believe in God - you can still make a decision to release yourself from the penalty you bear because of someone else's actions. For most of us, the greatest penalty we continue to pay for abuse and injustice is that we are consumed with paralyzing bitterness. In many ways, forgiveness has almost nothing to do with the person(s) involved and everything to do with YOU releasing YOURSELF to move forward, no longer chained to bitterness. You set a prisoner free, and that prisoner of bitterness is you.

Okay, so you've done that. You've released yourself from the injustice. You sent the responsibility of injustice to God or accepted the realization that no matter how hard you try, your bitterness accomplishes nothing - other than to keep that injustice alive and growing as a festering wound. Forgiveness is a vital piece of abuse recovery, but it still doesn't erase the damage. It still doesn't FEEL like you've been released because you've got such an unjust war to fight! I think that's where a lot of people get bogged down. The bitterness is dealt with as best as it can be, and yet, you're depressed, sexually broken, plagued by trust issues, control issues, and fear.

There's so much about this that's just stinking unfair, and it is in that unfairness that you may feel bitterness come back with a vengeance. Of course, the problem with bitterness is that it deflects attention and energy away from healing and puts you right back into a counterproductive cycle. When I'm dealing with the physical damage that I live with to this day because of my abuse, it's very easy to slip back into debilitating bitterness - but that doesn't change my reality, it only compounds the difficulties I have to live with. When I am jolted awake by a terrifying nightmare where I relive the abuse, all of my energy needs to help redirect me to calm down and recalibrate so I know where I am. When I'm trying to navigate through close relationships and I feel like a stranger in another land who doesn't know the language or the customs, that discomfort can overwhelm me so much that I pin it all on my abuse and the injustice of it all. Of course, I can spin that discomfort in my head and heart until I wind up destroying precious relationships rather than taking the time to cultivate and nurture them.

Abuse, like death, has a very real sting to it long after the abuse stops. That sting is the damage - the unfair battles that you face. The sting lives in your heart and your mind (and your body) and your memories. Bitterness compounds that sting to the point that it becomes a festering sore. Forgiveness drains that bitter infection and puts you light years ahead in your journey beyond abuse, but it doesn't erase many of the issues and conditions that you're left with. There are two steps in the process of abuse recovery: forgiveness and navigation. When you feel bitterness creeping back as you struggle and thrash with the damage, be very clear and very firm with it. Bitterness will re-attach you to the injustice and drain all of your energy for the real task at hand: re-learning how to live, how to love, and how to turn tragedy into a positive force for change.

You can't change the past. You can't rewrite your history and undo what has been done to you. Forgiveness releases you to be MORE than your past. What you CAN do - what you MUST do - is to use your energies to navigate through the damage, strategize how to live, re-learn, change your perspective, and become healthy.

Written by Sallie Culbreth
Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to move beyond abuse

Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.
-Louis L'Amour

Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to help them move beyond abuse

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Sex, Lies, and Liberating Truth

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In last week's article, I wrote the following:

"Right about now, you're probably thinking through your sexual history and experiences and finding that celebration of your sexuality and sexual function are not necessarily the conclusions you come to. You think of being exploited and hurt. You think of being used and set up. You think of having the innocence of childhood and the joy of sexual pleasure stolen. These things are part of my sexual history too, but you and I have an opportunity to carve out a new sexual identity. One based on the sacred design, crafted by a master Artist, and intended for pleasure and celebration. That requires actively confronting the lies of abuse, identifying those lies, and replacing the misinformation or contamination with a celebration of the wonder that you and your sexuality are."

So let's look at some of this chaos and determine how to find sacred sexual liberation.

Many survivors falsely believe that because they experienced sexual sensations or sexual pleasure, this can only mean that they either invited the abuse or enjoyed it. In other words, they equate sexual pleasure with consent. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, many abusers use sexual pleasure and stimulation as a means of grooming and confusing their victims. If you experienced sexual pleasure during the abuse, if you felt sexual arousal or excitement, you responded exactly as you were created to respond. The problem with those sexual feelings of arousal and pleasure is not that you felt them - the problem is the CONTEXT in which those experiences occurred. You were designed to experience sexual pleasure when sexually stimulate. That's normal. What is NOT normal is the context where that stimulation occurred: the context of abuse.

Sexual acting out with other children or with animals is a very common experience for abuse survivors. In fact, many look back over their youth and see that the predominant theme is pursuit of sexual feelings and experiences. Quite often, when abuse survivors reflect on this sexual theme of their youth, they struggle to even label what happened to them as "abuse." The thinking goes something like this: "If I pursued having sex or sexual encounters with other kids when I was young, maybe I was just a twisted sex maniac that really wanted what happened to me." Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Young people who act out are those who have had a premature sexual awakening. Just like adults, they are trying to make sense of what they experienced and know, sexually. Physically, emotionally, and relationally, they don't know how that's done. Their model has been violation and exploitation by an abuser for the satisfaction of the abuser's needs, so they seek out less threatening partners to explore what is awake and aware. Sexual acting out is one reason abuse survivors carry false guilt and long held secrets. That shame of pursuit is an enormous player in the toxic inner world of one who has survived childhood sexual abuse.

It is very common for abuse survivors to believe that "sex" is the equivalent to being exploited and hurt, set up and used. This is understandable, since this precious gift of sexual expression has been used as a weapon, a trick, and manipulation. A substantial amount of energy must go to counter these beliefs, but that's where balance and truth come in. If you've been abused, you HAVE been exploited, hurt, set up, and used. In fact, many abused youth grow into adults with equally abusive sexual partners who continue these patterns of exploitation, hurt, and manipulation. Sifting through these exploitive experiences and coming to terms with it gives you an opportunity to renegotiate with your body, develop healthy boundaries, and counter the internal sexual script that prevents you from being fully present.

Many abuse survivors are highly aroused by violent or degrading sexual fantasies. For some, these fantasies seem to be the only way they can feel arousal or reach orgasm. At the same time, shame and great confusion accompany the fantasies and the arousal they bring, particularly because they have been sexually victimized and exploited. The reasons for this are not always clear, but it touches deeply on the sexual brokenness within a survivor. It is as if survivors sexually imprint on the twisted, exploitive themes of their abuse and that becomes the baseline or channel to where and how arousal or gratification arrives. The experience of abuse - as I've said many times before - teaches a survivor his or her worth, which generally means they feel like a piece of garbage, like damaged goods, like something defiled and dirty. These are lies that feel like the truth, but when a survivor explores his or her sexuality through the filter of these lies, then violent and degrading fantasies may be the ticket to sexual gratification. To see your sexuality through the truth that you are a sacred, pure, and holy vessel may feel so foreign that you shut down, rather than celebrate the sexual pleasure that God created you to enjoy.

Sometimes, abuse survivors question the impact of abuse on their sexual orientation. There have been several academic studies dedicated to this question and there is no conclusive evidence that abuse determines an individual's sexual orientation. What is frequently experienced by survivors who may wonder why their sexual orientation is what it is, is the suspicion of this correlation. This is particularly true for men who were abused by males. There are many survivors who struggle with their sexual orientation and are searching for a reason why. They suspect that there was something about them that invited the abuse, or that the abuse turned them toward one sexual orientation or another. It is important to recognize that the responsibility for abuse - regardless of the gender of the victim or perpetrator - the responsibility is with the perpetrator, and his or her actions usually reap a chaotic sexual harvest in the survivor's life.

Risk-taking sexual behavior, sexual addiction, struggles with pornography, sexual anorexia - these are the tormented struggles that many abuse survivors wrestle with moment by moment. There is not adequate space here to address how deep these sexually broken roots go. These are complicated struggles that are compounded by feelings of worthlessness, abuse flashbacks, false guilt and shame, body memory, and societies who appear to be as sexually broken as abuse survivors.

But here's the truth: Sexual gratification is a gift from God. Your body is a beautiful vessel, reflective of your Creator's beauty. The sensual, erotic celebration of love was God's idea. There are a few Scriptures found in the Bible that I'd like to point out for you to consider as you reconstruct who you are as a sexual being. "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? … for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple" (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). Another Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:19) to meditate on is "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?"

The great challenge for abuse survivors is to shed lies and embrace truth. Understanding the beauty and pleasure of your sexuality requires shedding the sexually shattering lies you learned from abuse. Take the time to re-educate yourself about sex and sexual function. You might even want to find a sex education book for children or teens and learn correct information about how your body works. Asking God for help to re-construct how you view yourself includes asking God to help you with your sexual brokenness. In my own journey beyond abuse, some of the holiest moments I’ve known happened as I learned to celebrate the sacredness of sexuality.

Intentionally challenge your sexual chaos and brokenness. Re-write the sexual script that you rehearse over and over in your mind. Treat yourself with the dignity and respect that you were created for. Treat others with that same dignity and respect. Educate yourself. Celebrate your body. I conclude with the opening paragraph from last week's article:

Celibate or sexually active, the truth remains that you, your body, and your sexuality are beautiful, amazing, and sacred creations of God. Long before a partner is introduced into your sexual experience, the one you most need to celebrate and be in awe of is you! The Scripture states, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well" (Psalm 139:14, Hebrew Bible). In other words, when you decide how you're going to live in your own skin, particularly as a person of faith, you must embrace the exquisite design that is you. That design includes your sexuality and sexual function


Written by Sallie Culbreth
Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to help them move beyond abuse

Just a Reminder

People cannot discover new oceans unless they have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
-Andre Gide

Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to help them move beyond abuse

Intimacy Pain

Sexual Pain

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You'll notice that the title of this article in your subject line is Intimacy Pain. I did that so your filters wouldn't toss this in the junk heap. In many ways, that might be a perfect metaphor for the extreme reaction that so many abuse survivors have about the issues of sex and sexuality. The fact is, most survivors are in a great deal of sexual pain. I'm not speaking exclusively to physical sexual pain, but also to emotional and spiritual sexual pain.

I remember a few years ago, as I prepared for a Beyond Abuse retreat, there was one registration form that made me smile, but it also made me sad. The registrant's response to the question, "What are your expectations for this retreat?" wrote, "I just want to know how to have great sex." That sums up where many of us are. We don't understand sex. We're sexually broken people who know a lot about having sex, but don't know much about sexual well-being.

The extreme thinking about sex usually swings to either complete avoidance of sexual sensations and arousal or complete obsession. Sometime, it can actually include both when survivors are so obsessed with sex that it scares them to the point that they avoid any thoughts or behaviors that are sexual in nature. Variations to these extreme ideas are a direct result of the confusing feelings, sensations, environment, relationships, and circumstances that surrounded abuse. Premature sexual awakening and confusing sensations also contributed to this confusion. In addition, the sense of danger, secrets, shame, and terror shaped your sexual ideas. The very real physical pain that many of us experienced is another enormous factor in how we think about sex. This is especially true when you still live with the physical damage, including sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancies, genital damage and mutilation, abortion, and urinary tract or gastrointestinal damage.

For the most part, the way most survivors learn about sex, sexual practices and behavior, and your identity as a sexual being comes from your abusers and/or pornography. That fact, alone, can precipitate complete ambivalence. It’s chaotic and complicated for most of us. For those who practice self injurious or predatory sexual behavior, research indicates that this is often an attempt to create a scenario similar to that of abuse, but this time, the victim wins. The reason this kind of behavior can escalate is because the pleasure factor that reinforces the scenario and the stakes are amplified. On the other extreme for those who claim to have a complete aversion and even repulsion of sex, research has demonstrated that these abuse survivors are much more easily aroused than those who indicate they enjoy or pursue sex. What this reveals - on either extreme - is that abuse survivors do not understand sex. Now, to be fair, it's pretty obvious that most of society doesn't have an extremely healthy understanding of sex and sexuality either, but this sense is exaggerated with abuse survivors.

An important antidote to sexual pain is information and truth. I say it often, but when you're abused, the lies feel like truth, and truth feels like a lie. There is no issue that demonstrates this more than sex. For an abuse survivor, being at home in your own body, being at peace with how it functions and what it feels, and allowing those feelings to be experienced as pleasurable, good, and sacred is no small task.

Celibate or sexually active, the truth remains that you, your body, and your sexuality are beautiful, amazing, and sacred creations of God. Long before a partner is introduced into your sexual experience, the one you most need to celebrate and be in awe of is you! The Scripture states, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well" (Psalm 139:14, Hebrew Bible). In other words, when you decide how you're going to live in your own skin, particularly as a person of faith, you must embrace the exquisite design that is you. That design includes your sexuality and sexual function.

Right about now, you're probably thinking through your sexual history and experiences and finding that celebration of your sexuality and sexual function are not necessarily the conclusions you come to. You think of being exploited and hurt. You think of being used and set up. You think of having the innocence of childhood and the joy of sexual pleasure stolen. These things are part of my sexual history too, but you and I have an opportunity to carve out a new sexual identity. One based on the sacred design, crafted by a master Artist, and intended for pleasure and celebration. That requires actively confronting the lies of abuse, identifying those lies, and replacing the misinformation or contamination with a celebration of the wonder that you and your sexuality are.

Next week, we will look at some of these lies that feel like the truth, and identify new ways of thinking about sexuality that will help you to be sexually healthier. In the meantime, perhaps a good thing to do over this next week is to think about yourself as a sexual being, and join the psalmist's celebration and say to your Creator, "I praise you, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful - and that would include me! I know that full well!"

Written by Sallie Culbreth
Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to help them move beyond abuse

Just a Reminder

Avoid problems, and you'll never be the one who overcame them.
-Richard Bach

Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to help them move beyond abuse.

Searching for Faith in the Setting of Your Abuse

I've had to excuse myself from church services or religious conversations on more than one occasion, and I suspect I'm not alone in my reasons for doing so. Like so many other abuse survivors, my abuse occurred within the context of faith and religious practices. The rituals and routines that bring millions of people comfort and strength have often been excruciatingly painful and disruptive to me. Many times, the icons of faith have not reminded me of God's love, but of abuse and exploitation. The dilemma - for many of us - is how to reclaim your faith in the midst of a setting that is inextricably connected to perversion, terror, secrets, and abuse of power?

Here are a few suggestions that worked for me. Please understand, they worked for ME and might not be helpful for you, HOWEVER, I hope this is a springboard to think through strategies that could potentially work for you.

1. Recognize that the religious practices of your abusers are not synonymous with your own spiritual journey - even if you remain in or return to those religious practices. This was a primary reason for my resistance to Christianity - it was the religion that my abuser was involved in and hid behind to justify the abuse. It took awhile for me to separate following Christ from the perversion of the Christian religion that stole my innocence. Freedom - for me - came when I recognized these as separate entities.

2. Embrace faith practices that bring genuine comfort to you. Resist feeling pressured into religious practices that are toxic to you because that is not an honest act of faith or worship, it is a performance. When I returned to Christianity, I struggled deeply with the music of the church - not because of the music itself, but because these were the songs of my abusers. While others around me found encouragement, comfort, and strength in songs like “Amazing Grace” or “There's Room at the Cross,” I found myself snatched away to the horrors of childhood sexual abuse. While the Scriptures provided wisdom, instruction, and enlightenment to my fellow believers, they bludgeoned me because it was THAT book that occupied a central place in my abusers' home. THOSE words were quoted with venom and hypocrisy and hammered into the soft heart of an exploited child.

3. Rehearse an inner dialogue that will help you navigate through worship services, sermons, and study groups. For years, when it was time for music during worship services, I had a conversation going in my head that went something like this: "This is just music. It is meant to help people to focus on the love of God, the power of faith, and the peace of hope. In no way is this my abuse or my abusers. It is what it is: sacred music. It is not my abusers, it is just music and I am going to look for the encouragement, strength, and peace that it contains. I am going to remove their voices from these songs and their actions from these words."

4. Do not be afraid to challenge teachings and beliefs that seem toxic to you. A true teacher welcomes honesty inquiry from a seeker. If those you challenge become defensive, aggressive, or condemning, find someone else with wisdom to help you explore your concerns and struggles. I vividly remember feeling like a ping pong ball being slammed from one clergy's paddle to another. My questions threatened many people and they turned my honest search into being judged regarding the condition of my soul. I was accused of being rebellious or having a hardened heart. These experiences were almost as painful as my abuse because I KNEW my heart. I knew that my search was motivated by a sincere desire to know the truth. I also knew that my very life depended on my pursuit of answers to really difficult questions, so I wouldn't back down. I kept asking. Kept seeking. Kept knocking. Eventually, I found a true teacher who wasn't rattled by my spiritual issues and let me thrash without attacking me.

5. Recognize that the measuring stick for a healthy spirit isn't how well you genuflect, how well you can quote Scripture, or how many times you attend worship services. The measuring stick for pure religion is this: ". . . to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27, New Testament Bible). Of course, the problem for abuse survivors is that the abusers of the world polluted you! To find you way back - to reclaim your faith and your spiritual quest to live beyond abuse - requires taking the time to extract yourself from that pollution, and recalibrate your heart towards the beautiful, sweet, and gentle love of God.

In my wilderness wanderings - first away from Christianity, then around it, and finally through it - I found that the uniqueness of my journey and my circumstances were met with the equal uniqueness and extremely person nature of God's immovable love for me. In Dr. Gerald May's book, The Dark Night of the Soul, he makes the statement that it is impossible for God to be any closer to you than he already is. That statement may feel just about as far from your reality as it could possibly be, until you really stop and think about it. Dr. May continues by saying that the challenge is for us to become aware of that fact.

Abuse can obstruct your journey to become spiritually whole, particularly if your abusers were associated with religious practices. Aggressively redirect your relationship with religious practices so that you seize ownership of those practices as your own. On the outside, it may look the same, but on the inside - where truth matters the most - your pursuit of God is YOURS. It is between you and God. You may need to strategically work through the difference between the culture of religion and how you relate to it, and all of these things take time.

It's ironic that I became a Christian, that I started a ministry, and that I am often immersed in the culture of religion - many times the religion of my abusers. The way that came about was that I carefully deconstructed that toxic, perverted, deceptive religion of my abusers, rejected that as an abomination to me and to God, and then reclaimed Christ as my own. Reclaimed faith as mine and how I practice that as mine. Not theirs. Mine. That's your task. Reclaim faith as your own. Reclaim how you practice as yours. Not theirs. Yours!

Written by Sallie Culbreth, Founder
Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to help them move beyond abuse.

Just a Reminder

He lives in me. He lives in you. He watches over everything you do. Into the water. Into the truth. In your reflection . . . He lives in you.
-Rafiki and her Choir, Lion King

Committed to Freedom . . . providing people with spiritual tools to help them move beyond abuse