Right now, articles about the Sandusky trial are giving details from victims’ testimonies and the images are brutal, horrific, and overwhelmingly sad. Amidst all the shocking stories, that may be traumatizing much of America, there is one piece left out of all that I have read and that is what to do with people who sexually abuse. What becomes of them? What should happen to them?

Even in prison sexual abusers are killed. They are the pariahs of society and yet, they start out just like anyone else. Is a sexual abuser born with a label on them that says they will sexually abuse? No.

Someone hurts them first and then they hurt someone else.

Am I saying Sandusky was abused, poor guy, we should feel sorry for him and go easy? NO. There are consequences to actions and he has hurt many people because he never got help. Was he probably abused? Yes.

The fact is that this is a big case and we are hearing horrific details of the abuse and how he has abused many people, but sexual abusers walk around free every day, some of them have been caught, many have not. Those who have been caught may have their name on a registry somewhere, but they’re out and about and if they don’t get help and no one pays attention, they may continue to hurt others.

There have been allegations that ten boys were abused by Sandusky over fifteen years. Sadly, I bet that’s a low number. I would not be surprised if it was many more. Hopefully I’m wrong.

So, do all people who are sexually abused abuse others? Absolutely not. But it means that some will and they will often abuse more than one person. Like Sandusky.

Is it about sex? No- it’s about power. It may be that sexual desire and power have warped, but it’s not solely about sex because it is non-consensual. It is about being able to take something from someone without their permission.

We know it is non-consensual for one sole reason, a child/minor cannot consent to sex. There is no such thing as non-consensual sex, essentially it is rape.

Sandusky used children’s innocence, trust, and fear to prey upon them. He has not only tricked child after child, but he has also tricked the entire society.

When everyone thought he was a good man who was a coach and a founder of a charity, no one questioned his actions as possibly abusive and harmful of children. Sexual abusers often work to create their worlds so no one will suspect them and they can keep abusing. In the Sandusky case, people saw a few things, kind of said things here and there, nothing happened- Until Now.

An upstanding citizen suddenly found out to be an abuser? Unfortunately there have been and are many abusers out in the world who seem to be upstanding normal citizens. They may even seem better than normal, they may be business owners, heads of towns, coaches. Sexual Abusers do not wear labels that identify them, nor do they say they are sexual abusers, they look for whatever way possible to keep abusing.

Abusers find children they can have access to who probably won’t tell or have no one to tell or no one to listen. They find children who need someone to care about them. They may be loving and sweet to a child but also sexually abuse them, which causes extreme confusion for victims. They might give gifts or play games. They may be violent and threaten a child or tell the child they will hurt their family. 

The Sandusky case is a good one for learning about sexual abuse because Sandusky did all of these things. The thing is access- do they have access to a child who often doesn’t have someone paying attention? This is not to blame caregivers, it is to say that sexual abusers will trick the adults too- in order to be able to get to the child.

Note to Society-

*We all must be aware of sexual abuse and what to do if we see it or see signs of it.
*We must understand that it is NOT the victim’s fault and the victim had no say so about whether or not it happened.
*We must not be afraid or embarrassed to describe sexual acts an adult forces upon a minor, this includes the watching of pornography or forcing a minor to see an adult naked
*We must risk ourselves (embarrassment, threats, or simply being wrong) by reporting suspicions of the sexual abuse of children.
*We must speak about the whereabouts of sexual abusers, not to exclude or ostracize them from society, but to keep children safe.
*We must be guardians of children and support parents being parents unless the parents are the ones who are abusing their children.

So, what happens when there is a sexual abuser? Well, at this point the hopeful outcome is that men like Sandusky are locked up for a long time. He can’t be trusted to act appropriately on his own, so the law must help him. Locking him up at this point seems necessary. But it’s a late outcome. He has already abused countless victims.

Sandusky needed therapy and some sort of rehabilitation long ago. Society has got to speak out against abuse, to push for therapy for those who have been abused, to see therapy as normal, helpful, and necessary, and to see therapy as normal for men.

We can’t lock everyone who sexually abuses children up. Actually, we could, I guess, if we could find them all, but we don’t. So, what now?

This society- all of us- must look for signs of sexual abuse, must work to protect children from it and make it something absolutely intolerable. We must look for ways to help victims of it stop the cycle and we must help perpetrators of it, stop abusing others.

What do you think can be done? Talk to others. Begin the conversation.

I decided to watch a movie.  An oldie but a goodie (I like thrillers and horror movies), Fatal Attraction.  Now here’s the weird and strange part, I found myself empathizing with the psycho played by Glenn Close.  From her opening frame you can see just how crazy this woman is, there is simply no hiding it.  And I was prepared to hate her and root for her death as usual.  But as the movie went on I could see myself in parts of this deeply disturbed woman.  Now I’m not going to boil bunnies to death or anything like that, don’t call 911 just yet.

But when she flips out because he jumps out of bed to leave her, I could see how she was just begging to be loved.  She slept with him to please him.  She cooked for him.  She romped in the park with him and his dog.  She built this huge fantasy that he loved her and she fulfilled him and he just used her, was finished, and was ready to go.  He was heartless and cruel to her.  She slit her wrists before he left and instead of taking her to the hospital, he bandaged her up and took care of her for the night.  Gives her hope that he cares for her.  If he were a less selfish bastard, he would have owned up to his actions, recognized her scream for help, and gotten her to a doctor who would have recognized her mental illness.

But, like a man (sorry guys) he was more interested in looking out for himself.  If he sought medical attention, he would have had to come clean about cheating on his wife…maybe.  So instead, he lets her believe he cares and goes on his way.  Do I think he got what he deserved?  Yep.  He got caught.  Now his family didn’t deserve the fallout from his infidelity, but the bad guy in this movie is really the cheating bastard.  He started the ball rolling and didn’t man up enough to stop it.  As a result his completely innocent wife and daughter were both put in danger and the poor crazy woman ended up dead.

This sympathizing with the psycho really has me freaked out a little here.  But then I watched some of the special features.  Glenn Close talks about how she took the script to two separate psychiatrists and asked if this behavior was possible and why someone would be this way.  What did she find out?  This woman’s personality is that of someone who had been sexually abused even before memory had formed.  Well gee there’s a lightbulb moment.  No wonder I’m thinking the psycho isn’t the bad guy.  All of these feelings tumbling around inside of me (loneliness, despair, grief, love, hate, rage, and others) are exactly what she was displaying to a maxed out degree of course.

And the kicker…this may have put me right over the edge…is that the ending where Glenn Close comes to their home and attacks them and ends up dead is not the original ending.  It’s the ending Hollywood made to make the movie more “accessible.”  The true ending to the movie, revealed in the special features, is that Glenn Close commits suicide after Michael Douglas attacks her for kidnapping his daughter.  When he just stops mid-attack, backs away, and leaves without a word you could see the complete rejection destroy her.  She then kills herself in such a way that he is later arrested for her murder.  This ending would have definitely fit more with the mental illness and the abuse victim MO, and like I said sent me right over the edge.  I would probably be typing this from the mental ward.  They did show clips of the original ending, but it lost its dramatic effect.

I think this is one movie that might be on the do not watch list for a while.  Who’d have thought a movie about a guy cheating on his wife and being stalked would trigger me?  Not I.  But I am definitely one big nerve right now.  I hope I’m not stuck watching Disney movies for the next year just to avoid dangerous emotions.

I can remember being so afraid someone would find out what my grandfather was doing to me.  Of course, at the time, I felt like it was my fault and I were going to be in trouble.  At the same time, I remember wishing someone would notice and stop it.  But the overwhelming emotion was fear.  I believe this fear has contributed to my feelings of guilt and a poor self-image.

There are two instances where the fear of being caught overwhelmed me.  Two instances when there was physical evidence right there for everyone to see if only they looked.  If you’ve ever been abused, you know that something you live with day in and day out is the fear that everyone will look at you and be able to know what you’ve done.  Yes, I wrote it correctly.  Most abuse victims feel guilty and ashamed of what has happened to them, as if they were they have done something wrong.  So at times, we worry that our deficiencies are written on our faces.  That the whole world can see what is so wrong with us that we have invited these things to happen us.

My grandfather took every opportunity available to molest me.  It didn’t matter if it were the middle of the day or the middle of the night.  If he had a few minutes alone with me, you can believe that something was going to happen.  Both of the instances I’m going to talk about happened in stolen moments when the chances of being caught were high.  I don’t know if that excited him, made it more thrilling to get away with it or if he just didn’t worry about being caught because somehow he felt he could turn it around and make it my fault as he had done with at least one other victim I know of.

The first incident happened when I was going to a friend’s house next door to my grandparents.  I was no longer living in my grandparents’ home, but we only lived a few blocks away.  I stopped in to get a drink and say hello to my grandmother.  She wasn’t there.  The next thing I knew, I was being kissed and fondled.  I was uncomfortable his beard stubble was rough and burning my cheeks and neck and other places.  I remember he offered to shave.  The whole encounter lasted less than 10 minutes and I was out the door on the way to my friend’s house.  I’m not sure how exactly I escaped that time.  I also didn’t realize that the lower half of my face and my neck was red with a beard rash.  My friend noticed.  She asked me what happened to my face?  It would have been a perfect opportunity to tell someone what was happening to me.  But I was afraid and so I lied.  I told her I had been eating pistachios and the red die from the shells got on my face.  I’ll never forget that weird look on her face.  I hid in her bedroom until the redness had faded.

The second incident happened when I was waiting for my mother to pick me up in her new used car.  Her very first car.  I’m pretty sure my grandmother took her to get it and that is why we were alone.  I went into the bathroom and after a minute or two he followed me.  He laid me on the bathroom floor and performed oral sex on me.  I was wearing these blue panties that were silky on the outside but almost fuzzy on the inside.  He stopped when we heard a horn honking outside, indicating that my mother and her new car were there.  He stood up and left the bathroom.  I think he asked me if I liked it or something, I’m not sure and I don’t remember my response.  I remember that he didn’t even wash his face before heading outside to see my mom’s car.  After a few minutes I followed him outside and one look at his face had my heart beating at an alarming pace.  He had a large spec of blue fuzz stuck in his beard stubble.  I kept waiting for my mother to look at that piece of fuzz and start screaming at him or at me.  She never did.  I often wondered if she noticed the underwear in the laundry and if it made her think of that piece of fuzz on his face.  But if she did, she never said anything to me.  I never wore those underwear again.

Two instances where the evidence was right in front of everyone’s face.  Two instances where everyone but another child ignored what was in plain sight.  Two instances that I have yet to confront anyone about.  In all of the years since my abuse was revealed not one person has ever taken responsiblity for allowing me to be alone with a man they knew was a “pervert” (that’s what he would have been called 18 years ago).  Not one person has ever said they were sorry for not protecting me, for not seeing the signs.

Other evidence that wasn’t connected to one specific encounter included bed wetting until I was 14.  It stopped the day he died.  My underwear were frequently stained, something my mother says she noted but didn’t think a lot about.  I was introverted without a lot of friends.  I spent much time alone in my room.  It has been decided that I was suffering clinical depression as young as 13.  I started smoking cigarettes at the age of 8 and still smoke to this day.  I quit when I was 14 and didn’t pick up a cigarette again until I became sexually active.  In fact, after my first few real sexual encounters I again wet the bed.  I stopped bathing unless forced.  I believe now this was an attempt to be unattractive, but it never deterred him.  I recall one time using the word orgasm in a sentence and my mother yelling at me not to say it again.  She didn’t question how I knew the word.  It was actually a slip, I’d meant to say organism…or did I?  I lost a dramatic amount of weight.  My face was gaunt and hollow, my eyes looked sunken in.  I didn’t care in the least about my appearance.  Pretty odd for a 13-year-old girl.  I didn’t ask to shave.  My mother eventually made me do it because I was growing a massive amount of hair under my arms.

So many things that could be pinpointed as signs of abuse.  Any one or two could be overlooked I suppose, but all of them together?  I guess it’s true, what they say…There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.  And that refusal has caused as many scars as the sexual abuse.

(Gulp….Exhale)….

I was sexually abused as a child.

It was during my divorce with the help of my therapist that I finally came to grips with what happened to me. The details don’t matter–although it’s VERY important to me that the world knows it WAS NOT my father who abused me. But like in so many cases of sexual assault with a child it was a family member who I should have been able to trust who abused me.

It’s also important to understand it wasn’t one of these situations where it was a repressed memory in which I might have been manipulated by my therapist into “remembering” something that really didn’t happen and he planted the seed of this memory. No, sadly, I carried these memories for years.  It was something I remembered and coped with throughout my childhood, teen years and finally adult world. The whole experience marked me for life.  Abuse is something that’s almost impossible to overcome.

I was reading an article my son posted on Facebook yesterday about the whiplash that has impacted the lives of the lawyers who defended the largest  group of boys molested by priests in a class action suit against the Catholic church.  One of the lawyers told the press “What happens to kids when they’re abused and what happens to their brains when they are abused is something that we don’t know how to fix.” (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gxDxEIP-onf-8jsSzHwzft6j0W2wD9IE7KM80) The article was about the impact defending their clients had on the lives of their lawyers. Hearing their stories and learning what the abuse did to their clients was traumatizing to many of the lawyers. They had breakdowns, divorced, left their profession–they just couldn’t cope. Somewhat akin to the impact of second-hand smoke–I call it the second-hand abuse syndrome.

Reading this article brought it all back to me again.

And I believe it–I do think it impacts the way your brain functions.  It affected so many of the relationships I had in my life–even with women. I learned during therapy that it can be a root cause to the life-long struggle I’ve had with my weight.  Women who’ve been sexually abused often try to hide themselves behind extra weight in an attempt to make themselves as unattractive as possible to avoid the attention of men–even those men they WANT to have a relationship with.  I’ve had sleeping problems all my life that ebb and flow based on the stress I’m under–another tell-tale sign of abuse.  Children of abuse–particularly women–have horrible trust issues and can overcompensate in social situations by behaviors that some consider inappropriate. I know that when I begin to feel overwhelmed I talk more and more. And even though I know it’s happening and want to SHUT-UP  I can’t–it’s like a snow ball rolling down a hill that just can’t be stopped.  Even though today I KNOW and understand what’s happening I’m not in the driver’s seat it’s a force that seems to be stronger than me.

I remember as a child how I would disassociate when I’d begin to get overwhelmed–I think a therapist would tell me that what I did was really depersonalization–in which I’d watch what was happening to me as if I was standing outside my own body–but the point is it was a common coping mechanism children of abuse use. I’d also go into a “slow motion” kind of flow–it’s hard to explain what this is like but when I began to share all these memories with my therapist he steered me to a book that described my coping mechanisms to a “T”.

Used to be whenever anything got too much for me–feeling overwhelmed by the demands of school, or the tasks at work, or the stress in my marriage–I’d slip into these states of self-protection that I used as a small child when I needed something to help me deal with the unwelcome advances of my molester.  As I got older I found I turned to these mechanisms less–until my divorce that is.  During my separation and divorce I found I was getting reacquainted with those old “friends”–and whether I wanted to invite them back or not they helped me cope through a particularly traumatic period in my life.

I think recovery from abuse–all kinds of abuse–is much like recovery from alcoholism.  You don’t recover.  You never get over it. But you make a daily commitment to move forward and beat those forces that haunt you.  And you try to forget.

Before my mother died I confronted her about what happened. When we talked she knew the truth of what I was saying and never doubted what I shared with her. And even though she said she was sorry we both knew there was nothing that could be done about it. I’m sure she lived with her own constellation of regrets. She thought she was leaving us in a safe place but it wasn’t. I wasn’t angry at her–indeed I felt considerable compassion for her and wondered how much of my own life history was a shared one with my mother. And to be honest, I don’t know if there were overt signs about the abuse and if my parents had looked more carefully if they could have figured out what was happening. There was so much less awareness then compared with today about abuse–maybe they just didn’t know what to look for.

But we do today.

And so I’m sharing this very difficult confession with you today in hopes that anyone who reads this and has a small child in their life who they love beyond infinity will take all due diligence to build a protective cocoon around those precious jewels.

• Don’t assume that all your family members are trustworthy.
• Don’t assume it’s only men who molest children.
• Don’t assume your children will tell you when they are being threatened.
• Don’t assume it won’t happen in your family.

Take steps TODAY to protect them from something that could be a horrible horrible force in their life.  It’s YOUR JOB to protect your children. DON’T WAIT–tomorrow may be too late.

Kathy Smedley (http://www.protectkids.com/abuse/abusesigns.htm) shares a list of possible physical and behavioral indicators of child sexual abuse, some of which are:

• Waking up during the night sweating, screaming or shaking with nightmares.
• Masturbating excessively.
• Showing unusually aggressive behavior toward family members, friends, toys, and pets.
• Complaining of pain while urinating or having a bowel movement, or exhibiting symptoms of genital infections such as offensive odors, or symptoms of a sexually transmitted disease.
• Having symptoms indicating evidence of physical traumas to the genital or anal area.
• Beginning wetting the bed.
• Experiencing a loss of appetite or other eating problems, including unexplained gagging.
• Showing unusual fear of a certain place or location.
• Developing frequent unexplained health problems.
• Engaging in persistent sexual play with friends, toys or pets.
• Having unexplained periods of panic, which may be flashbacks from the abuse.
• Regressing to behaviors too young for the stage of development they already achieved.
• Initiating sophisticated sexual behaviors.
• Indicating a sudden reluctance to be alone with a certain person.
• Engaging in self-mutilations, such as sticking themselves with pins or cutting themselves.
• Withdrawing from previously enjoyable activities, like school or school performance change.
• Asking an unusual amount of questions about human sexuality.

The following links are good sources to go to to learn more about the signs of abuse and how to protect your children.

http://www.sandf.org/articles/Signs.asp

http://www.essortment.com/all/signsofsexual_rxxy.htm

http://www.stopitnow.com/warnings

http://www.child-abuse-effects.com/sexual-abuse-signs.html

]]> http://sexualabuseexperts.com/2010/01/29/behavioral-physical-signs-of-child-sexual-abuse/ Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:28:22 +0000 factsnv http://sexualabuseexperts.com/2010/01/29/behavioral-physical-signs-of-child-sexual-abuse/ If you suspect that a child may be a victim of sexual abuse then be aware of possible behavioral and physical signs and indicators, including but not limited to:

• Demonstrating aggression with family members, pets, toys and friends.
• Evidence of physical traumas to the genital or anal area.
• Bed Wetting
• Nightmares, night sweating and/or waking up in the night shaking/screaming
• Excessive Masturbating and/or persistant sexual play with friends and toys
• Unusual fears of specific locations and/or people; unexplained panic
• Loss of appetite and unexplained gagging
• Regressing to behaviors too young for the stage of development they already achieved.
• Asking an unusual amount of questions about human sexuality
• Withdrawing from previously enjoyable activities, like school or school performance change