Welcome To My World

I was 25 and in love. Really in love. Not one of those codependent, or only incredibly physically attracted, or other messed-up kind of things that we mistake for love. I had spent the past seven years pretty much anesthetizing myself with any kinds of drugs or alcohol I could get my hands on, not to mention an interesting and sometimes dangerous assortment of men. I had also had a couple of very seemingly-unrelated bad experiences as an adult, such as being date raped at the age of 19, and becoming involved in situations which exploited me in various ways. At the time I did not understand those experiences because none of my family or friends talked about feelings, much less anything emotionally upsetting. I had learned a long time ago to keep my unhappinesses to myself. For the past two years or so I had become quietly dissatisfied with my way of life and had started to think there must be more. As I thought about people who seemed truly happy, the one commonality I came up with was that they all seemed so settled. So calm. So lacking drama.

I started to want that calm.

The other thing that had been happening for the past couple of years was that I was no longer easily able to shove memories of troubling childhood events into the back of my mind. Scary or unhappy things that had happened to me as a kid kept popping up in my thoughts when I least expected them to. I had never really forgotten these things: I just had been able to avoid thinking about them before. Now they came to me at all times of the day and sometimes startled me awake during the night in terrors and nightmares that left me drenched in sweat and tears.

I knew what some of these things were. Mom and dad had a lot of relationship problems. Mom was alcoholic and they both used a lot of illegal recreational drugs. They both had seen various psychiatrists, been in the hospital for suicide attempts, and flittered from one self-help trend to the next. But this other stuff, the weird stuff that had been insisting on coming forward into my consciousness, had no name. I didn't know what to call it or where it fit. All I knew was that it was haunting me and would not let me rest until I paid it proper attention.

Then that one day as I was listening to the news on the car radio and I heard two words that changed my life forever. Those words were "sexual abuse." Sexual. Abuse. Sexualabuse. Sexual abuse. Words that I had never heard before but that perfectly summed up the memories and intrusive thoughts that had been slowly overtaking my life for the past two years. I suddenly understood that what had happened to me as a child had not only not really been sex, but that it had been abuse as well.

That explained a lot.

It took a while but I straightened my life out. I stopped using illegal drugs and men and alcohol to anesthetize myself. I got into therapy, something that was very frightening because I thought it might mean I was crazy like mom and dad. I went back to school and discovered that I was intelligent. I decided that what had happened to me had to have some meaning, and since I couldn't find any, I would make some. I got three college degrees in eight years and became a therapist myself. I became involved in a national community of childhood sexual abuse survivors, editing their newsletter for two years and organizing national conferences which were well attended by crime victims from all over the country. I spoke as an advocate for crime victims on National Public Radio, at workshops, and on over 20 television shows. In my private practice my consultation work included presentations on subjects such as child porn and the treatment of incest survivors. In some cases I actually saved lives.

I married my true sweetie and now we have two great sons. Their lives have been very different from what mine was like. They have always had two sober parents. There has never been any abuse or violence in our household. We talk about feelings.

When they grow up, they are much less likely to be victims of crime than I was.

This is a blog about victimology, the study of the psychology of victims and their victimizations. What makes a victim? Then what keeps a victim a victim, or helps them out of being one forever? This blog will also address peripheral topics such as forensic psychology, PTSD and the effects of trauma, and crime and pop culture, other topics I find fascinating. I hope you will feel free to comment and join me in this pursuit.