MINISTERING TO VICTIMS OF INCEST

I can’t believe it,” said my wife. “The woman I talked to this morning was molested by her father for nine years and never thought of herself as a victim!”

My wife’s new friend struggled emotionally during high school and college but seemed to be adjusting well to her graduate work. It was evident, however, that she had been hurt. In a later conversation she said, “I just sealed off all the feelings. The few times I tried to analyze what had happened, I couldn’t let myself blame my dad, so that left me blaming myself. I guess I decided it was better to feel nothing.”

When ministering to victims of incest, often the first thing we do is help them deal with the fact that they are victims.

Sorting the past

“When it was happening, I thought God must be punishing me,” Debbie said. “Why else would anyone want to do those terrible things to me?”

I assured her that God does not take pleasure in seeing his children hurt. As we talked, she began to realize abuse is the result of people’s sinfulness, not God’s disfavor. As long as there is sin in the world, there will be abuse, and as long as there is abuse, there will be victims.

“It helps to know I’m not the only one this has happened to and that it was my father, not God, who was hurting me,” she said.

“Debbie,” I went on, “we don’t know why God permits such things, but we do know he never leaves us and he understands our hurts.” Together we read several verses of Scripture (Heb. 4:15; Ps. 91:1-6), which seemed to bring comfort.

One common fear is the reaction of others: What will people think? Will they want to be my friend?

“I never told a soul until I was in college,” Jackie said. “I was afraid of what people would think of me, and I guess it was also my way of denying it ever happened. But as I did tell a few people and realized they didn’t shun me, I began to stop being so hard on myself.”

The issue of responsibility has to be addressed. Most incest victims assume others think they’re bad because they were sexually abused. They find it hard to believe others will be able to place the blame where it belongs-on the offender.

“When others accepted me, and even recognized that I had been hurt, I was finally able to look at myself in the mirror without feeling I was dirty,” said Jackie.

Once the abused person accepts the fact that he or she has been wrongfully hurt, the next question is often Am I normal? or Will I EVER be normal? One young man said, “I feel like a freak. None of my friends’ mothers made them have sex. I will never be able to erase it from my mind.”

Patty, who often had been hurt physically, wondered about the future: “What if I can’t have babies? What if I can’t have sex like a normal woman?”

Such individuals need medical consultation. My reassurance as a male counselor wasn’t nearly as comforting as the words of a female gynecologist who gave her a thorough examination and took the time to reassure her, a necessary part of healing. It’s most helpful when reassurance comes from a qualified person.

Reassurance is usually needed when incest victims are approaching marriage. They often struggle with feelings of inadequacy and fear. They worry about not being capable of normal marital sexual response. In some situations, the fianc of the victim also needs counsel to know how to ease the victim’s fear. Time, tenderness, and compassion are the keys.

Abused individuals want shelter and protection. Family members may have failed to protect them or may have hurt them. They need to know that God is trustworthy, a refuge. I often use Psalm 91 and Hebrews 13:5, 6 to assure them of God’s protection.

Looking beyond the hurt

During the time the incest victim is painfully and laboriously sorting the past and seeking answers to myriad questions, an insidious process is taking place: the victim is in danger of seeing herself only as a victim. A filter may develop that excludes every self-perception other than the fact of being a victim.

“I don’t know who I am,” Joan told me. “If I’m not thinking about myself in terms of what happened to me, I don’t have anything to think about. I have no niche in life. I have only pain.”

My job is to help her create a new identity. Obviously, Joan is much more than just the sum of the things that have happened to her. The problem is she doesn’t always realize her attributes, doesn’t know how to get beyond the hurt to begin developing herself.

She needs a friend or counselor to stay close to her in her pain but not allow her to reduce herself to nothing in the process: “You are a creation of God, not just a victim of incest. You still have the great attributes and potential God gave you.”

Restoring the future

What is going to happen to me now? is the question on the lips of most victims. Life seems so futureless after the cesspool of misguided adult sexuality.

With children, the fear of people’s finding out about the incest often takes on a different meaning. If the offender was a parent, the child fears that either the offender or she herself will be taken from the home. If the offender is removed, a close friend or counselor can encourage the victim by saying, “I don’t know all that has happened to you, but I know your daddy isn’t out of the home because you’re bad.” We can’t say more than we can truthfully state, but I don’t hesitate to remind a child that he or she is not responsible for the parent’s lack of self-control.

A child placed in a temporary foster home has even more with which to cope. He or she may feel abandoned or rejected. To counteract these feelings, I encourage the nonoffending parent or siblings to communicate acceptance by making telephone calls or by saying in a number of ways, “I love you and want to stay close to you.”

Nine-year-old Linda wondered, “Will I ever get the Cabbage Patch doll my daddy promised me?” At first I thought, A doll is so insignificant compared to the hurt she has experienced. As I thought further, though, I realized two deeper questions were embedded in her innocent query: Are adults trustworthy? And will I ever be allowed to be a child again? I couldn’t simply tell her that other adults were trustworthy; she had to learn it for herself, one interaction at a time.

The healing began when her dad was able to accept responsibility for his behavior. He eventually told her he had been wrong to touch her the way he had. He also said he was going to give her the doll, but not because she had let him touch her. He was able to say, “I’m going to give you the doll because you are a little girl who needs a doll to play with. I should have been teaching you that all along rather than trying to show you things about sex.”

At first, learning how to play with other kids was hard for Linda. She had spent almost two years withdrawing from her peers because of the incestuous relationship. She was scared the other kids would make fun of her and afraid she wouldn’t know how to act. Even though she feared an imagined circumstance, the fear was real.

Linda needed to reenter peer relationships gradually so that she could see she could be accepted. It’s hard to act like a child when you have been burdened by adult thoughts and problems. Her mother helped bridge the gap by saying, “Judy’s mom told me Judy has a new doll, so Saturday let’s all go on a picnic. You kids and your new dolls can all get acquainted again.”

Linda was embarrassed at first because she knew her playmate knew. It wasn’t long, however, until memories of the good times began to spark a whole new warmth between them. Linda later told her mom, “It was like a fairy tale. It was like we met and didn’t even know each other at first, and then we became friends again. I feel so happy.”

A child thrown headlong into an adult world and experiencing some of the consequences of sin at an early age stops growing up emotionally yet grows up too quickly behaviorally. Fifteen-year-old Nancy said, “I can’t laugh and giggle about things that are funny to other girls my age. I’m weighed down with heavy issues, yet I can’t seem to change anything. Puppy love and kid games aren’t much fun when you feel you’ve been ruined as a wife and mother.”

Nancy had stopped growing emotionally because her need to be a child had not been met. Therefore, she couldn’t grow into a normal adult. She didn’t know how to give and receive affection and was left with a childlike need for love that no one seemed able to satisfy.

Nancy’s therapist helped her by going through what is sometimes called psychodrama. They talked about the proper way parents show affection. Together they played with dolls as a means to create healthy relationships. They relived some of Nancy’s childhood. They imagined Jesus was sitting down and playing with them and giving his approval. It took time, but Nancy finally came to the place of letting out the playful spirit God had given her. She had to learn how to joke again and how to laugh at herself.

“I was taking everything too seriously,” she said. “If someone teased that my makeup was on crooked, I would run from the room feeling she must think I was a hussy. I had to learn not to take kidding as criticism.”

By going back to her childhood through the reparenting process, Nancy faced several obstacles common to sexually abused children: Learning how to give and receive affection, not perceiving normal give and take as severe criticism, and not feeling guilty for having a good time.

Nancy described a situation of feeling guilty when she laughed after dropping a piece of bread and jam on the cat’s head. I asked her to imagine what would have happened if Jesus had walked into the room. After much discussion, she was able to see he probably would have laughed, too, and maybe even asked to stay and share lunch with her.

It’s important for incest victims to realize that Jesus is not only touched with the feelings of our infirmities but is also caught up in our joys. The healing touch of humor and play is a special gift from God. I’m serious with a victim when I need to be, but I also want to help the victim realize there is a playful child in every healthy adult.

Admitting the pain, accepting the gain

After the pain of incest, some adults suffer from what I call “a muted sense of who they are.” Or in Deanna’s words, “I was just kind of numb. I was existing, but I wasn’t really able to project my life into a future.”

At first she denied what had happened to her. Through counseling, however, Deanna was able to face her past. She went from numb to suicidal to guardedly hopeful to full of life. People like Deanna don’t recover all at once. It usually involves a few steps forward and a few steps back. I try to help people work through the denial phase. Then, in the midst of their hurt, I may be used by God to enable them to see themselves and their potential as much greater than the sum of their anguish.

In Deanna’s case, she finally could admit all that had happened to her. She stopped blaming herself. She was able to forgive her brother. She began to realize God still loved her, which allowed her to begin thinking about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. It took longer to work through the self-blame and forgiveness because she had denied the hurt for so long.

One day she remarked, “You know where I was hung up? I couldn’t seem to get past seeing myself as a castoff. I don’t know why it took so long for God’s love to penetrate, but I’m so glad it did! I’m alive again for the first time since I was 7 years old.”

She was alive because she had carved out a new identity-not just a victim, but a person loved by God and useful to him and others.

-Earl D. Wilson

Oregon City, Oregon