Victim? Abuser?

If you’re going through hell, keep going.
-Winston Churchill

      

 I keep thinking about the movie Men in Black.  Throughout the movie you find out different characters who look perfectly normal are aliens.  I relate to this because I have always felt as though I was trying to hide my alienism from the rest of the world.  People would look at me funny and I would know they were on to me.  But then I would also look at other people and wonder.  I remember as a little girl thinking that the abuse was normal and all little girls went through it.  It was part of life.  But as I asked questions and got older I found out most of my friends were not abused.  This wasn't normal.  I was different.
    
     Through life on occasion I would be pleasantly surprised to find there were people like me.  I say pleasantly only because the more of them I met the more "okay" I felt.  In many of my discussions with Dave, he has helped me to feel even more "okay".  He has a tendency to point out the good, the strengths I have gained through it, and the ways God can use me.
     This morning I was thinking how God has strategically placed women who have been abused and what a threat to the enemy we can all be if we suit up, if we lock arms and go after him where it hurts.  We have suffered one of the most heinous offenses.  I've said to Dave many times, "What can they do to me, now?"  I've seen the worst of what the enemy can do.  The stuff I have lived through has caused a lot of fear in my life, but as it fades through healing there is a bravery that grows bigger than any fear I have ever felt.  There is a healthier anger at the true enemy.  To suit up, we have to face it, face what happened to us.  We have to feel the anger, forgive the offender and find who we are in Christ.  He has a plan for us and in these days we can be powerful.  The enemy whispers shame, guilt and hatred in our ears to keep us bound and immobile in the fight against him.  When we don't face the abuse we lose, he wins.  We are everywhere, in all shapes and sizes, with the ability to influence others where God has placed us.
     Dave's words haunted me for days when he said, "Your story has no power until you share it."  As I have shared I have seen heads pop up in the crowd and say, "I was abused and I'm healing."  We heal and then we reach out to others and hold their hands so they can heal.  Everyone that breaks free of the bondage of abuse takes power from the enemy. 

     The enemy hit us hard when some of us were very young and we need to do the same.  I recently sat down with my two daughters and told them my whole story.  They were absolutely amazing.  They have both been a huge support to me and I am so glad I told them.  It has helped them understand me and the crap I put them through growing up.  The best part of it was when I heard them say, "We have to talk to our kids."  I wasn't ready when my kids were little but I look at my grand kids and I ache for them.  I have come forward and stepped out for those 6 precious little lives.  Boys and girls are both abused. 
     We talk to kids about how to stay safe so they don't become victims, but how do we do this early enough when some of them are toddlers.  I know a girl who was abused at three years old and had no idea what was happening to her and that it was wrong.  She was never taken for counseling or allowed to talk about it.  She has never healed.  When abuse victims don't heal, they hurt themselves.  They become promiscuous or prostitutes, they cut themselves and become addicts.  When the abuser stops hurting them, they continue abusing themselves.  I did it.  I have abused myself for most of my life. 
     What about the little boy who was abused at three years old.  His mother felt guilty because she had brought the abuser into the boys life.  She didn't know that even though he acted completely normal during the day, he cried at night.  The boy became an overachiever and in the mothers guilt and denial she thought he was okay because he got good grades and his bedroom walls were covered with awards.  Of course he is okay.  As he grew into his preteen years, she didn't know he fought the demons of pornography every night.  She didn't know that he felt dirty every time he satisfied himself trying to escape the horror in his mind.  She didn't know that he found alcohol to soothe the guilt and that his he was a sex addict.  She didn't know he fantasized about hurting other little boys.  She didn't understand that those other little boys represented himself.  One day he went to prison for years because he really hurt someone.  How would she know?  Now all the little boys who were his victims are hurting themselves and the cycle goes on affecting generations.  They may not all abuse others, but if they don't heal they will abuse themselves.  Often the children of victims become the victims.  Who is to blame?  The original abuser, the mother and the victim who became the abuser.

     I wasn't abused because I am different, I am different because I was abused.


Though I can’t change what happened, I can choose how to react. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and locked up.
-Tori Amos