About the Sexual Healing Journey
Life is an adventure to be explored, not a problem to be solved.
—A SURVIVOR
When I was in junior high I was captain of a girls’ softball team. One cool, dewy morning we huddled on the pitcher’s mound, trying not to feel self-conscious in our shorts and ironed shirts as packs of boys ran laps around the surrounding field. A starched and scrubbed physical education teacher began giving us tips on the upcoming game. After she finished citing a few rules, she paused and then quickly added in a whisper, “If the ball hits your crotch, grab your knees and scream. If the ball hits your breasts, grab your head and scream.” We looked at each other in puzzled, embarrassed silence until a few girls giggled. Looking back, I realize that we were coached not to mention the real part of us that hurt. The message was clear: Sexual hurts were considered unmentionable.
Old cultural taboos against paying direct attention to sexual concerns can create a “knees and head” approach to sex. This attitude may obscure our ability to address our sexual concerns directly. We may ignore, sidestep, or downplay sexual issues out of embarrassment, shame, and fear. It’s almost as though we don’t see the word sex in the phrase sexual abuse. But sexual abuse does cause sexual harm.
As a therapist who specializes in sexual abuse and sex therapy, I help survivors travel their own sexual healing journeys. One of their common goals is to have a healthy sex life, something each one of us has a right to enjoy. To get there, survivors of sexual abuse have to overcome the damage of the past and to build their own, new models of sexuality based on a sense of choice, renewed self-respect, and a commitment to emotional intimacy.
Although each journey is personal, many survivors move through similar territories and challenges as they sexually heal. This book is designed to be your guide in navigating these sometimes turbulent waters. I will present a variety of techniques and exercises to help you evaluate and overcome the effects of past sexual abuse.
At the start of your healing process, it may help you to know that old, hurtful myths about abuse—myths that may have caused you to bottle up your own pain for many years—are being challenged and dismantled. That “knees and head” approach to talking about sex, which has for years inhibited frank discussions of sexual abuse, has finally grown as outdated as my old gym teacher’s starched shirt. Talking honestly about the parts of us that hurt is no longer considered taboo.
As a society we have finally begun facing important facts about sexual abuse.
This dissemination of new information and change in social attitudes about sexual abuse has helped some survivors to remember abuse they had long ago repressed. For other survivors—such as those, like me, who were victims of date rape—it may take time and a new awareness to accurately label past events as sexual abuse. With less shame and in increasing numbers, both men and women survivors are stepping forward and declaring, “Yes, this happened to me, too.”
That’s seldom enough to effect healing, however. For many survivors, past abuse continues to interfere with their enjoyment of sex and intimacy. They may feel anxious about sex. They may feel anxious even talking about sex.
Indeed, a history of sexual abuse can disrupt many facets of our sexuality. Past abuse may continue to affect
• how we feel about being a man or a woman
• how we feel about our bodies, sex organs, and bodily functions
• how we think about sex
• how we express ourselves sexually
• how we experience physical pleasure and intimacy with others.
By learning to face sexual issues directly, survivors can overcome the sexual harm that was done to them.
SEXUAL SYMPTOMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE
Sexual abuse creates specific kinds of problems with sex. Here is a partial checklist of the most common problems I hear about in my clinical practice. These symptoms and others will be discussed in more detail later, but for now you may want to consider whether any of these statements apply to you.
TOP TEN SEXUAL SYMPTOMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE
_____ I avoid, fear, or lack interest in sex.
_____ I approach sex as an obligation.
_____ I experience negative feelings such as anger, disgust, or guilt with touch.
_____ I have difficulty becoming aroused or feeling sensation.
_____ I feel emotionally distant or not present during sex.
_____ I experience intrusive or disturbing sexual thoughts and images.
_____ I engage in compulsive or inappropriate sexual behaviors.
_____ I have difficulty establishing or maintaining an intimate relationship.
_____ I experience vaginal pain or orgasmic difficulties.
_____ I have erectile or ejaculatory difficulty.
These symptoms can show up immediately after sexual assault, emerge slowly over time, or come on suddenly, long after the abuse occurred. They can exist both before and after we’ve identified ourselves as survivors.
Sexual symptoms of sexual abuse don’t often go away on their own. To overcome them, most survivors must actively work at healing. Although addressing sexual symptoms can be rough going at times, it is possible to heal. A survivor shared, “I had almost all of these symptoms when I started sexual healing several years ago. Now many have gone, and the few that are left are manageable.”
Don’t be surprised if you feel anxious, or even afraid, about beginning your own sexual healing journey. Such feelings are common and will diminish as you proceed. It can help to remember that on this trip you are in the driver’s seat, controlling how far and how fast you travel. To prepare for the journey and to give you an idea of what you can expect along the way, I’ll address some concerns you may have.
INFORMATION ABOUT SEXUAL ABUSE
Sexual abuse is epidemic. Research estimates indicate that about one in three to four women and one in six men have been victims of sexual abuse as children.* Adult forms of sexual abuse, such as date, acquaintance, and stranger rape, and other types of sexual exploitation are also extremely prevalent.
No one is immune to sexual abuse. Sexual abuse happens to women and men of all races, ages, cultures, religions, socioeconomic levels, and sexual orientations.
Victims of sexual abuse are not to blame. The responsibility for sexual abuse rests solely with the offender.
Sexual abuse is difficult to remember. It is estimated that about half of all survivors suffer from some form of memory loss. It is often not until survivors feel supported and secure that they begin to recall their sexual abuse.
Sexual abuse is difficult to disclose. Because of feelings of shame, embarrassment, or fear, many victims of sexual abuse do not report sexual abuse experiences. Many survivors have endured years of silent suffering.
Sexual abuse has serious long-lasting effects. The trauma of sexual abuse can be at the root of many psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, self-abusive behaviors, social problems, sexual problems, and food, chemical, or sexual addictions. In addition, sexual abuse has been linked with such medical problems as headaches, asthma, heart palpitations, stomach pain, spastic colon, pelvic pain, fainting, dizziness, and a variety of chronic physical conditions.
Recovery is possible. Survivors can recover from the effects of sexual abuse using steps that involve recognizing effects, dealing with memories, overcoming guilt feelings, developing self-trust, grieving for loss, expressing anger, disclosing the abuse, resolving feelings toward the offender, improving health care, and learning how sex can be safe, healthy, and enjoyable.† A variety of resources for healing are available to help survivors recover. These include books, tapes, newsletters, online forums, counseling centers, support groups, sexual abuse organizations, and conferences.‡
* For sources on the prevalence of sexual abuse, see studies reported in Child Sexual Abuse by David Finkelhor, The Secret Trauma by Diana Russell, and Abused Boys by Mic Hunter. Figures on prevalence of sexual abuse are constantly changing, with variations dependent on current definitions of sexual abuse and the percentage of crimes currently being reported. All four of these books are listed in the Resources section at the end of the book.
Complete publishing information for sources not appearing in the Resources section is given in the footnotes themselves.
† For a more detailed description of these stages, see Ellen Bass and Laura Davis’s The Courage to Heal and Mike Lew’s Victims No Longer.
‡ See the Resources section for a listing of organizations and support groups.
WHO CAN GO ON THE SEXUAL HEALING JOURNEY?
Anyone. You don’t have to first remember your abuse or identify yourself as a survivor of sexual abuse. Sexual healing can help you to determine whether you were ever sexually abused and to what extent. To take this sexual healing journey, all you need is a desire to learn about sexual healing or a feeling that this book may help you improve your sex and intimacy experiences.
While this book primarily speaks to survivors of sexual abuse, it also provides a resource book for intimate partners, therapists, friends, and family members of survivors who want to learn about sexual healing as well as to support survivors who are making changes. In addition, many of the ideas and exercises in this book can help people overcome sexual problems from other causes, such as antisex upbringings, psychological stress, relationship difficulties, medical illness or injury, sexual addiction, and other negative sexual experiences besides sexual abuse.
You can go on this journey alone or with an intimate partner. If you are single, you may wish to begin sexual healing without a partner. Nancy, a forty-year-old rape survivor, worked for months on sexual healing before considering becoming involved in an intimate relationship. Several months after her therapy ended, Nancy entered her most stable and satisfying relationship ever. By first healing alone sexually, she had laid the groundwork for new sexual intimacy.
If you have an intimate partner, he or she can help you by providing support and understanding. A man survivor told me his wife’s ability to talk frankly with him about sex reduced his long-standing sexual anxiety. And a woman survivor found that her partner’s interest in learning about sexual abuse and attending counseling sessions with her helped her feel she wasn’t alone and abandoned. Sexual abuse and the recovery process affect both partners in a couple relationship. When couples learn how to work together in sexual recovery, they can heal individually and strengthen intimacy together.
HOW DOES SEXUAL HEALING WORK?
Sexual healing is a dynamic process. We gain understanding about how our sexuality has been affected by sexual abuse, make changes in our sexual attitudes and behaviors, and develop new skills for experiencing sex in a positive way. One type of change encourages another.
Lynn’s experience as a twenty-seven-year-old married survivor illustrates this process. When Lynn was a child her older brother would often take her into the bathroom, fondle her, and attempt intercourse with her. Years later Lynn married her high school sweetheart, Hal. Throughout their marriage Lynn had difficulty becoming sexually aroused and enjoying sex. Sex became rare and was often an upsetting ordeal.
Before Lynn sought counseling she had no idea that her sexual problems with Hal might have resulted from the earlier sexual abuse. It wasn’t until Lynn wept uncontrollably after sex one night that she realized a serious problem existed and that she needed help. While in counseling, Lynn made a connection between her ongoing sexual problems and the molestation by her brother. She discovered that she had learned to view sex as a duty, an act without choice, and an experience strongly associated with vaginal pain. Her sexual withdrawal from Hal was related to her old fears.
This new understanding prompted Lynn to begin changing her attitudes about sex. Lynn wondered if what she thought was sex was really sex abuse. She began to feel she had been cheated out of learning that sex could be something desirable, pleasurable, and fun. And she realized she could be a sexually healthy person after all.
With the help of counseling, Lynn learned new skills. She learned to create a temporary moratorium on sex, giving her needed time to heal and helping her realize she had a choice to say no to her husband’s sexual advances. Lynn stopped associating sex with obligation, guilt, and pressure. She spent months learning to initiate and enjoy nonsexual touch. With Hal’s cooperation she did special exercises to relax and stretch her vaginal muscles to make intercourse more comfortable. Lynn worked intensively for more than a year, and slowly she understood and resolved her feelings about the abuse.
As Lynn practiced new skills, she experienced her sexual feelings in a new way. Her responses changed. Eventually, Lynn’s sexual experiences came to feel within her control and for her own pleasure.
I didn’t know what “sexual person” meant before. To allow myself to become sexually aroused has been a wonderful learning experience. I’m still learning to deal with sexual feelings . . . not to turn them off but to let them grow and become more sexual. I can just hug Hal if I want to do that, or make love, if that’s what both of us feel like doing. If it’s not right I can say so. I’ve never felt like I had these choices before.
You can also begin a sexual healing journey. You can identify your sexual concerns, learn how sexual abuse has affected your sexuality, get rid of old attitudes and behaviors that resulted from the abuse, and develop a new, healthier approach to sexual enjoyment.
Healing our sexual injuries allows us to heal in a basic way. We journey from intimate injury to sexual health. Through sexual healing we can overcome the harm and empower ourselves to experience sex anew.
HOW LONG DOES SEXUAL HEALING TAKE?
There are no easy answers or quick fixes. Sudden breakthroughs in healing occur rarely. In most cases changes come little by little, over months or years. Sexual healing usually takes a long time and involves real effort. New information and understanding are constantly being integrated as significant changes in attitudes and behavior are being made. It takes time to change established patterns of thinking and responding. Sexual healing is rarely as fast as survivors and intimate partners would wish. As one survivor said, “It takes as long as it takes.” When you give yourself the time it takes, the rewards are well worth the experience.
HOW DOES SEXUAL HEALING RELATE TO GENERAL HEALING FROM THE ABUSE?
Healing can begin at many starting points. Different people heal in different ways. For many therapists and survivors alike, addressing sexual issues is seen as a final stage in sexual abuse recovery. Sexual concerns often emerge naturally after survivors have resolved feelings of anger and fear about the abuse and toward the offender, and after survivors have begun to feel better about, and take better care of, themselves. Many survivors seem more prepared to address the difficult topic of sex after having recovered generally from the abuse.
This traditional sequence makes a lot of sense in theory, but it’s not always the way it works in practice. Sexual concerns come up at all points in sexual abuse recovery: beginning, middle, and later stages. Sometimes a specific sexual problem provides the impetus for a survivor to seek treatment in the first place. Mitch, a survivor of molestation by a woman neighbor, entered therapy to deal with a troublesome sexual problem. “I would ejaculate as soon as intercourse would start,” he explained. “It was embarrassing. I knew something was wrong because I had no trouble lasting when I was by myself.”
Looking for the cause of his sexual problem led Mitch to recall the abuse he had experienced as a teen. He needed to resolve his feelings of anger toward women, as well as a fear of humiliation that had resulted from the abuse. Mitch sought therapy as a way of helping him overcome the problem that concerned him most, his sexual functioning.
Sexual issues may emerge in the middle stages of general healing as we realize more about what happened to us and how it has affected our attitudes, our self-esteem, and important relationships in our lives. If sexual issues are not dealt with to some extent when they come up, we may inadvertently undermine our progress in general healing.
Mary, a lesbian survivor, lost all interest in sexual contact while she was in therapy with me working through her feelings from childhood sexual abuse. Although this is a common reaction for a survivor to have, it created havoc in her relationship with her partner, Joann. Joann was angry and depressed about the lack of sexual interaction. Joann’s biggest fear was that Mary had stopped loving and trusting her. Mary had trouble keeping her mind on her general recovery because she was so disturbed by and concerned about Joann’s reaction. Before Mary could resume work on general recovery, she and Joann had to work through their sexual issues and find new ways for intimate sharing and for expressing love. Sexual healing enabled Mary’s general healing to continue.
Taking time to resolve specific sexual problems often assists other recovery work. George, a twenty-five-year-old male survivor of molestation by his uncle, found himself at an impasse in recovery from alcohol abuse. Often George would go home from his alcohol recovery group meetings and compulsively masturbate to degrading pornographic pictures. His compulsive sexual behavior was generating feelings of self-loathing and shame. He felt bad about himself and unable to share honestly and intimately with members in his recovery group. For George sexual healing became important in enabling him to break free from the hurtful cycle he was in. His sexual healing helped him gain understanding and control of his sexual impulses. As a result his self-respect and self-esteem were finally able to improve.
Sexual healing and general recovery need to work together in the same way that music and lyrics work together to make a song: They alternate and blend together at different times. They are complementary, not isolated, experiences.
By incorporating sexual healing into a broader healing journey, survivors can flexibly shift back and forth from general to sexual healing when necessary. Sexual healing allows survivors to grow stronger.
WILL I NEED SPECIAL HELP ON THE PATH TO SEXUAL HEALING?
Sexual healing is profound personal growth work. During the process you will probably look closely at who you are, how you feel, what has happened to you in the past, and how you now take care of yourself and relate to others. The journey can be filled with many emotional highs and lows. While it can be uplifting to increase understanding, to make changes, and to gain new skills, you may also become depressed or upset at times. Your daily routines may be upset, or your day-to-day functioning may suffer. Having special help can be an important way to take care of yourself and to facilitate your healing.
You may want to work with a therapist who specializes in sexual abuse treatment.* Survivors can benefit from joining a therapy or support group and spending time with friends who are familiar with healing from sexual abuse. If you are currently in therapy, talk with your therapist about your desire to focus on sexual concerns.
If you are a survivor of sexual abuse and find yourself caught up in self-destructive or extreme behaviors, seek qualified professional help. Your sexual healing won’t be as productive, and may even be stymied, if other more critical issues aren’t addressed. Any of the following problems should be resolved with the help of a professional: alcohol or other drug abuse, suicidal thinking, violent behavior, self-harm, criminal or offensive sexual activities or addictions, psychological problems such as severe depression or multiple personalities, or participation in an abusive relationship. Once you have begun to address these more crucial problems, sexual healing can be incorporated as part of your total recovery.
HOW CAN I BEST USE THIS BOOK?
This book can be used in a number of ways to help you sexually heal. If the idea of sexual healing brings up a lot of anxiety or fear, you may want to approach the material in this book with the understanding that you are primarily going to “read about” sexual healing. I have organized the book in progression, the information in the early chapters providing a foundation for the more active healing work discussed later. In this learning approach you may choose to read about the exercises, suggestions, and new skills, but not to do them yet. When you have read through the book once, you will have an idea of what sexual healing involves and where it can lead. This understanding can help you feel ready to do more active sexual healing in the future.
You can also take a pick-and-choose approach to the material in this book. Read about sexual healing, and do the exercises and suggestions that appeal to you now. Everyone heals differently, so it is important to be able to individualize the contents of this book to meet your needs at this time in your life.
Some survivors, especially those who have done a lot of work in sexual abuse and sexual healing already, may want to use this book more actively. You can use it, pencil in hand, as a workbook, marking the inventories and doing the exercises—jotting down ideas and reactions as you go.
It may be a good idea, whatever the degree of your active involvement, to keep a journal while you are reading the book. Sexual healing requires you to face your most personal feelings. Writing about them as you work through the book may help you resolve feelings now and may give you a record of personal growth that can help you in the future.
For survivors who are in counseling, you can use the book to augment your therapy. It can help you identify areas to focus on with your therapist. You might take an inventory or do an exercise and then discuss your responses and feelings in therapy. You may want to underline or highlight passages in the book that you find particularly significant and to share them with your therapist.
As you can see, there is no right way to use this book. It is designed to be a healing resource you can refer to at different times in your life.
HOW DO I BEGIN MY SEXUAL HEALING JOURNEY?
Begin your journey only when you feel ready for it. Go slow. Pace yourself. Trust yourself. Remember: This is your journey.
So let’s get started. You can repair the damage done to you in the past. You can look forward to a new surge of self-respect, personal contentment, and emotional intimacy. When you reclaim your sexuality, you reclaim yourself.