Childhood sexual abuse inflicts and imprints a distorted lens through which the survivor interprets – or misinterprets – life. The distortion affects the survivor’s perception of life, God, men, themselves, sexuality, etc. It is difficult to identify an aspect of human life not affected by this imprint. That is not to say that all survivors have a distorted perception of…
Caleb stood in the hallway and poked his head into the room, enough to see in but not enough to be easily seen. He was deciding whether to attend my breakout session at a men’s conference or the breakout session on pornography – how men are enticed into it and neurologically affected by it. My breakout session focused on helping…
Clark Barshinger, in Haunted Marriage, calls childhood sexual abuse “murder of the psyche.” The depth of psychological injury from childhood sexual abuse and the long-term existence of its manifestations surpass the effects of most other forms of trauma. The notion that survivors “just get over it” ignores the trauma of abuse and the intricately intertwined wiring of our personhood; emotional,…
Tina Zahn experienced dissociative moments common to many survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In her book, Why I Jumped, Tina described how her stepfather ordered her to their dark and dingy basement. She recalled how she hated her stepfather’s breathing, being held down by him, and the smells that emitted from him. As her stepfather went through his abusive ritual,…
Many survivors of childhood sexual abuse experience a phenomenon common to trauma survivors known as dissociation. Dissociation serves as a means of self-protection against the terror or horror of the abuse. When the common experience of dissociation becomes a practiced pattern, it develops into a disorder known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).
Last Thursday at 7:46 AM (ET), I joined with countless others by pausing for a few moments to pray for people I’ve never met but people I’ll never forget – the families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. I remember the words spoken during the days following 9/11; “Let’s not forget.” Let’s also…
Have you wondered why God seems silent and slow to respond? So have I. My wife disclosed her childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to me more than ten years into our marriage. Everything changed. Life seemed to unravel as she began dealing with the hideous reality of what for years had been stuffed within her conscience. I began asking God to…
Bill Cosby was an even better actor than I thought he was. Cliff Huxtable, whom Cosby played in The Cosby Show, was a man with admirable family values and honorable morals. Wow, that was great acting! In more recent years, Cosby has toured the country propagating a message about people taking personal responsibility for their actions. But what Cosby portrayed…
For many years, I assumed that anything with the word “self” in front of it was not good: selfish, self-indulgent, self-righteous, self-pity. I’ve now awakened to the fact that there are some exceptions and self-care is one of those exceptions. Jesus, the personification of selflessness, knowing the limitations of his disciples, guided them in self-care. When “so many people were…