Hmmmmmm. I have followed this thread with a lot of interest, and at the end of the day I rather doubt that Duncan and I disagree on more than a few points. Certainly we aren't arguing opposite positions, and I don't really offer this as an argument against him.
Yes, I am using the word "define" in a negative sense where abuse is concerned; in fact, I suppose that's essential to my whole point.
Clearly we cannot change the past, and sure, our past experiences make us who we are today. I am a survivor of sexual abuse as a boy. Nothing I can do will ever change that fact, and some of the effects that abuse had on me as a boy will be with me for the rest of my life. I may always go into a bit of emotional alert when I enter a public toilet - because I was abused a few times in the men's room in our church. I may always feel a bit uneasy with compliments about my appearance - because the abuser sometimes called me "lovely boy" when he was about to reach orgasm.
But this is not the kind of thing I have in mind when I say that abuse doesn't define us. Here I am referring to how survivors so often feel that the fact that they were abused has destroyed their potential for a normal life now and in the future.
Here's an example. A guy might FEEL so ashamed of what happened to him that he believes himself to BE a shameful person; from there he may conclude that he will never find anyone who will be able to love him as he is or share his life with him.
What is wrong with this is that he is defining himself in terms of the abuse. He doesn't understand that his feelings come from the past, when he was a boy and unable to comprehend what was happening to him. He doesn't see that the shame belongs to someone else, the abuser. His feelings of shame are false because they come from false lessons learned from abuse as a child. He is DEFINING himself - not just his past, but also his present situation and future possibilities - in terms of the terrible things that someone else did.
This example shows, I believe, how catastrophic this kind of thinking can be for a survivor. If I think no one will ever be able to love "shameful abused me", then I will act according to that belief. My behavior around potential partners will be defensive and defeatist, and if a relationship seems to be developing anyway, I may torpedo it myself because I am certain it will fail sooner or later anyway. I can't bear the thought of being rejected, so I will pull the plug myself or start talking about how "you deserve so much better than me".
So in recovery in general, and in my own recovery in particular, I think a crucial task is to look for ways in which we have allowed abuse to define us and then break these connections. I think there are two areas we have to watch out for.
One is that we have to watch out for ways in which we have allowed ourselves to see the crimes of abusers as saying something essential about ourselves. If I feel worthless, for example, that is because the abuser treated me that way as a boy. As a child with few or no emotional resources that I could use to protect myself, I DEFINED myself in terms of how I was treated and that connection has continued in my mind into adulthood. If I feel unlovable, that too is because of what was done to me; how could anyone do such things to a boy who deserved the slightest shred of love or compassion? And again, I have DEFINED myself in terms of what belongs to someone else. Those things were done to me not because I wasn't lovable, but because the abuser, for whatever reasons of his own, was incapable of showing me the slightest shred of love or compassion.
The second area I think we have to watch out for is ways in which we fail to see that feelings that were accurate when we were abused boys no longer hold true now - things have changed. For example, suppose I feel powerless and fear that my life is out of control. That feeling may go back to my childhood, when I WAS in fact powerless against the abuser. What else is a pre-teen to conclude when he is being raped every week by a respected businessman, elder in his church, and leader in his Scout troop who assures him that if he tells, his father will throw him out of the house, his community will put him in the terrible local orphanage, his church will vote and send him to hell, and "someone" will run over his dog? But I am an adult now. The abuser has been dead since 1994. I have a family of my own and I have a successful career. So why do I feel powerless? Because I am still DEFINING myself in terms of the abuse; I have not yet broken the connection between what was done to me and how I think of myself. It isn't just that a feeling of powerless RULES me from the outside, as I think Dunx would put it; I actually IDENTIFY myself as a person as powerless - it's part of who I am and so I think that will never change.
Another vivid example of this came up in T with me yesterday. We were talking about times when the abuser would cop a quick feel - there was no time for what he usually wanted - and then be on his way. I told Gillian, my T, that "I felt so violated all the time; it was as if my body didn't belong to me." Her reply was this: "But Larry, you WERE so violated, and your body DIDN'T belong to you." My feelings were accurate. But that was 43 years ago. Now I am capable of defending myself and keeping safe boundaries in my relationships with other people. I cannot change the times I was violated in the past, but I no longer feel like a "violated person" - tainted and unclean. Why? Because I have stopped defining myself in terms of the abuse. I have broken the connection between the crimes committed against me and my identity as Larry.
I don't think the issue is that survivors allow abuse to rule them. To me, "rule" has to do with something external that influences me. Saying that "abuse rules me" suggests that I still see abuse as something separate from myself. But the way I see it, the terrible problem is that we tend to see abuse as something that can describe essential things about us: our worth (I am worthless), our innocence (it was my fault), our potential (I will never amount to anything), and so on. When I say "I am ashamed of what happened to me", that is allowing abuse to rule me; but when I think to myself "I am a shameful man because of what happened", THAT is allowing abuse to define me, and in my view that's a far more serious problem.
In conclusion here I want to come back to a point that you made, Adam, in starting this useful and thoughtful thread. You commented:
the only friends i have ever had are intimatly tied to my abuse,the guys here ,are the only friends i have ,but what brought us together? yes abuse .
I don't doubt that this is true bro, but the issue is this: Does it HAVE to be this way? If you say yes, it will always be this way, my answer is that this will be so only so long as you allow it to be so. You are defining yourself in terms of your abuse and seeing Adam only as the victim of the things done to him.
But you don't have to do that. If you would allow them into your life I bet you would have a lot of friends. Everything I see of you on the site suggests that you are an interesting, kind, witty, intelligent and caring young man. Why would non-survivors not wish to be your friends? The answer is of course that there is no reason at all. By working towards cutting the connections between the crimes committed against you and your view of who you are as a person, it will become easier to see these qualities yourself and relate to others with the strength, confidence and self-assurance that will allow healthy and fulfilling friendships to develop.
Doing this kind of thing, in small steps as we shuffle along every day, is really what recovery is all about. I would even go so far as to say that real recovery absolutely depends on our insistence that who we are and what was done to us are really very separate things.
God, what a long and windy post. Congrats to anyone who has soldiered through it! But I am up early, it's still dark out, and the stillness has made me pensive I guess.
Much love,
Larry
To all the English speakers, I kept this post simple because its not AK's first language. If you want me to elaborate, please ask.