Words and Phrases I hate when talking about abuse!

[James_dup1]

Ok guys I want to list a few words/phrases that are used when talking about abuse that just bug the crap out of me and why.

Healing?
Healing..why do I have to heal Im not the one that is/was sick in the abuse. My perp's were, why do I have to heal?

Process?
Process..please it wasnt a process when I was 6 and my cousin's forced me to the ground and pulled my pants down and did what they did to me.

Journey?
Journey...this sounds like Im going to Disney Land or something. Not going through hell and back. Journey please this isnt a journey, it's me being draged down the road of something called life.

"I need to learn that the abuse doesnt define me"?
...how the f**k doesnt it define me? It happened to me when I was 6 (how does something that happens at that age NOT define who/what you are). Then again at 12 to 17. Same question? If what happened to me doesnt define who I am then what do I use to define it, it's all I've ever known?

"Dont let THEM win!"
...Win? hum...great another battle I have to be strong for. They won the second they pulled my pants down and raped me. They won that battle.

"By me being here, they have lost."
...please...how have they lost? Im the one here, I'm the one who cant make love to my wife because of the flashbacks, Im the one that is sopose to take a hand full of pills everyday just to get out of bed. I'm the one that has lost my childhood. How on earth is me being here me winning?

Well just a few thoughts. I mean dont get me wrong I understand why we say those things to eachother (or at least I think I do). They just really bug the crap out of me. You would think with us being over a 1000 strong just on this board we could come up with some better ways of describing what we are doing in our lives.

Thanks guys
James

 

[Mike Church]

James:

No it is not a journey. It is a long and bumpy road but worth taking. A journey implies a finite end that you can see. We reach our destinations at different times.


Dont let them Win. and by being here they have lost.
Yeh the won the original battle. But by surviving and becoming the person you really are you WIN THE WAR. AND IT IS A WAR. They corrupted you and that is why all the problems arise for us. When we all reach the end of our particular road to being the person we really are you have defeated their best efforts. Also as long as we are here WE ARE IN CONTROL. I mean You can blow the whistle on them any time you like. Maybe we should let them all know that if they are still alive. We do not know it but WE ARE IN CONTROL OF THEIR FXXKING LIVES.

Healing: I ddont think a perp is capable of that. What we are capable of doing is ACKNOWLEDGING THE PAST AND ACCEPTING IT AND CHANGING THE BELIEFS AND EMOTIONS AROUND IT. CHOOSING TO SPEND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE IN THE FUTURE FREE OF THE SHIT. LEAVE IT BEHIND. I think that is what them mean bny healing. Me amyway

Does not Define you. Think a bit James. What happened merely defines what happened nothing more. Certainly not you or me. It is the same as having cancer does not define who a person is merely the condition.

Now here is one that really turns my crank. When someone says I understand how you feel!
How the hell can anyone know how I feel. I dont how they feel. Hell sometimes I dont even know how I feel.

Actually a great post and I think some good insight will be seen in the thread. Timely one too.

 

[Sick Puppy]

Originally posted by James:
"I need to learn that the abuse doesnt define me"?
...how the f**k doesnt it define me? It happened to me when I was 6 (how does something that happens at that age NOT define who/what you are). Then again at 12 to 17. Same question? If what happened to me doesnt define who I am then what do I use to define it, it's all I've ever known?

I will probably get a lot of crap for this but I sort of agree with it. I don't mean that I literally define myself by my abuse, but rather, I don't understand how it is something seperate from my personality. My personality exists because of what was done to me. I was so very young when it happened and I was just forming a personality and if that hadn't happened I might be a totally different person! So how can I seperate it and its effects from myself?

 

[Wuamei]

James:

How ironic! It seems I'm actually having trouble finding the words for this post!

(OK wise guys quit applauding now!)

Anyway I'll just say I relate to your feelings about this (now Mike I didn't say I know how he feels ), as a writer I like to try to use a lot of different words, I want to know what I mean when I use them, and I hope others do too.

If I say anything else I'll start getting into defining "is" and I don't wanna go there.

Took my time to speak. Now it's time to be silent.

Good thread James thanks!

Victor

 

[guy43]

Victor.... knock it off eh? too much with the smileys. (yes, I can tell a brother to knock it off when he's irritating me. just my opinion and it's not the end of the world for me, or for Victor I hope).

James,

I think I understand some of your anger about those words, I've felt the same way at times. Sometimes, no words whatsoever come close to describing what I'm going through and calling it a healing journey just doesn't do justice to the crap I'm slogging through.

For me, the choice of words is very important, especially when it comes to how/what I think about what's happened to me.

If I say to myself, "look at all the shit that's happened to me", it just makes me feel worse.

If I say "I can heal, or find some measure of recovery where I can at least enjoy life more than I do now", I'm not beating myself over the head with the 'I've been abused, all is lost' baseball bat.

What I say to myself counts, either I'm playing the old "I'm a f*(k up" tapes or I try to change the tapes. It's about being gentle with ourselves because we've been so hurt and traumatized by our pasts.

Just my take on this James. Good post. I hope this doesn't add to your frustration.

jer

 

[Lloydy]

James
I find that the words I use are very important to me as well, although I do plead guilty to rattling some of my posts and replies out in a hurry and words an phrases that I wouldn't if I was writing something like a journal.

I use 'healing' quite a lot, because I think I was damaged by my abuse, it felt kinda physical to me at times as well. I agree though, we weren't "sick" in the acts of the abuse, but I feel that the life I was left with after could be described as "sick"

"journey & process" - I do use terms like that to describe the .......process... of going from disclosure to wherever I am now. Sorry, guilty as charged there.

"I need to learn that the abuse doesn't define me"
I'm with you on this, there's so much more that defines us. Everything we've ever learnt or experienced defines us, and in the cold fact of hours and minutes our abuse is likely to be a very tiny bit of our lives. But it's the distorted influence that counts there.
However, I do think that before I started recovery and was at my lowest point my abuse did define me to an unacceptable level, so it's a factor in defining us I believe, but not the only one.

"dont let them win" they did win the battle back when I was a kid, I'm just winning this one !
But I don't see them as "losing" so much as I see them just stagnating as I move on and leave them to rot in whatever hell they're in or heading for.
Although I barely give them a thought now.

Good post James, I think that the choice of words we use is very important to us, and very personal, as I think this thread will show.
But when we write, either here or in a journal, we see the words in front of us and they take on a greater importance because we have to get our message across right first time. We haven't got the luxury of watching body language and responding immediately.

They say "The pen is mightier than the sword" - there's a lot of power in words when used carefully.

Dave

 

[andrew-almost52]

Hi James, most of those catch phrases and terminologies come from the psychiatric and social worker communities. When I was working in the field, I could spot a fellow worker at ten paces after listening to him/her for less than 2 minutes ..... all the catch phrases and supercillious knowing grin.

But I agree with you in a big way. All those euphasmisms somehow seem to minimize and even take away from the earthy, unvarnished anger that we feel. Peace, Andrew

 

[MrDon]

I guess I don't quite agree that these words don't depict things correctly. Maybe I just hold different definitions and they may just mean other things to me. I guess we all have our way of seeing things and if I use these in a post and someone doesn't understand what I mean, please ask me. I don't mean to be insensitive to anyone on here and some of these phrases have been what has helped me get where I am at today.

Just my view of it.

Don

 

[James_dup1]

It is the same as having cancer does not define who a person is merely the condition.

If someone is told they have cancer it's a life changeing event. So I think it would re-define who a person is. Just like the abuse defimes who I am today. Now will it keep defining who I am? I sure hope not.

Thanks guys for your reply's to this post. Those of you that have said you use the words in reply's to post here saying sorry if the words aren't meaningful. Look at the post and reply's I've done. I use them as well, I guess what Im getting to is this....ISN'T THERE SOMETHING BETTER WE COULD COME UP WITH TO USE? I mean come on were the wolf pack for god's sake, surely there is something we could find that would define what we are doing/feeling something. Ofcourse I have no idea what they would be. Well thanks again for the reply's.
James

 

[MrDon]

This post kind of bothers me and maybe I should explain why so that I can either understand the other view points here or someone might understand me.

For me I feel as if the abuse shot a bunch of poison deep inside of me and it permeated every crook of my entire being including my mind, brain, muscles, etc. So when I use the word healing, I am correlating it to trying to surgically remove all this shit that is inside of me and replacing it with healthy tissue so to speak. In my mind, it means that I have to slowly discover that which is hidden in me and believe me a lot of it is hidden, than I have to get rid of this. However if I don't replace it with something healthy, it leaves a big hole in my life.

Through out my time where I have been healing (see above paragraph for explanation), it has been a journey or that is how I often describe what I am going through. Mine point of recovery started out when I was totally paralyzed and came pretty close to breathing my last breath. I have taken a journey (or traveled) from that point through all kinds of things to get to where I am at. For me it was about taking physical steps and steps in my recovery which is why the word journey is so important to me. I am thrilled that I can walk and move around like I can today and those steps signify the journey I have taken.

Process to me means that it has not happened all at once. It was step 1, than step 2, than step 3 and so forth. It is a process to me of finding all of the hidden poison in my body and finding ways to get rid of it.

The phrase "don't let them win" means so much to me. It was a phrase that kept me from killing myself or completely giving up at times. At the time, I couldn't see enough worth in myself to take a "physical step" or to try and keep going at the time. But the anger of knowing that if I managed to not let them have complete control over my life for the rest of my life, pushed me in ways that I was not able to move in during this time. My abusers had complete control over me for 25 years of my life and kept me in silence. By me fighting the hell out of each step I took, I started to regain myself as a person and started to break the ties I had with them. In this struggle I had in my life, I was winning and they were losing. It was that analogy that kept me fighting and did not let me give up. Sometims it is the only thing that kept me going.

As far as the abuse defining who I am, well it does in many ways. But as I have worked through so many of the issues I faced, I am now beginning to realize that there is so much more to me. The abuse will always be there and there will be no way to delete it from my past, but now that I am beginning to discover the person I am, it is completeing the definition of who I am.


Again, I'm hoping that maybe I can understand more where people are coming because these phrases and I definately use them have been behind much of my recovery. I don't know if health care professionals used them or not, but I know I used them because they fit me and they made sense to me. LIke I said, I was completely paraylzed and breathing my last breaths at the age of 25, so these things to me are very powerful. And I like to compare what the abuse does to that of being a hidden poison. It is hard to see the poison although I know it is there. I see the effects, I feel the effects of it. And so many of the things that I say are in relation to this.

Hope I didn't lose everyone on this and hopefully it will help understand how I define these things.

Don

 

[sonlite]

way to go James!

I am very angry and frustrated too. I don't take what your comments were literally, I am just in agreement w how you let out the sense of betrayal and bullsh*tted-ness (hows that for a word?) that goes w having pick up what is our lives and try to be happy. James my 'story' begins at age 7 and I very much understand in my own heart.

john

 

[Wuamei]

James,

Perhaps in this thread you (and some of the rest of us) are trying to express our frustration at not having adequate words to describe what we've been thru & how we feel? Becuz really what happened to us & how it affects us often totally defies description and can't be put into any words
adequately enuf. Words can make it seem trite and yet we need to use words. Just a thot.

Jer,

Having said the above, that's a big part of the reason I use the graphics. However, as with the words, I sometimes find it hard to find graphics adequate & appropriate in expressing myself.

So I am sorry if it irritates you bro, but that doesn't mean I won't continue to use them. What it does mean is that as with my words I will continue to try to find better graphics to use in better ways that express myself. Thanks for the little reminder about that.

If there are specific graphics or ways I use them
that trigger you or something please let me know & I'll be glad to talk about it. Same goes for words.

And the same goes for anybody.

Victor

 

[James_dup1]

trying to express our frustration at not having adequate words to describe what we've been thru & how we feel?

I would say that is right. I have no idea how to word what I'm feeling. The words and phrases I have said here just seem so tame, what happened to me wasnt tame. It was hell. How come we use words like; healing, journey, etc... like what happened was no big deal. F**k that, what happened to me was/is a big deal. It just seems like we as survivor's sugar coat what happened to us as much as the media or churches do. How can we expect them to stop if we are doing to yoursleves. I mean if we say we're healing then what are our perps' doing? I dont know, I just wish I could find a better phrase to define what I am doing. I'll have to think about it some more, maybe I can come up with one. Thank again guys for the reply's.
James

 

[Thad]

Words are important. They are symbols to which we attach meaning. We string them together to express ideas and describe our experiences, thoughts and feelings.

The words you question are therapeutic words used by Ts and adopted by us to talk about something that runs far deeper than they can ever hope to explain. They are shortcuts with which we try to explain ways we have dealt with our trauma we use them in common because there are great similarities between what we go through. But we dont always mean the same thing when we use them.

The hardest part about them is that they are inadequate to express the depth of feelings. To someone who is still struggling to get out the anger, isolation, frustration, of our trauma they seem to objectify those feelings and point us toward strategies of getting over them

Therein is the frustrating part when we still need to get the feelings out to vent to say the truth of how we feel they seem like they are meant to pacify us and sometimes they are (sometimes they get said because we find it hard to just listen and acknowledge anothers venting) but for someone who has been able to get his feelings out and is ready to work on them they are ways of talking about that which has helped us cope. (and I truly believe in the good will and caring instincts of the guys here who want to help)

If the words seem frustrating I suggest you stay with saying the truth about your feelings (as hard as that may be) until you are ready to give meaning to the words about healing And, yes, we could use some better words any suggestions?

btw, james, thanks for the great post...t

 

[James_dup1]

when we still need to get the feelings out to vent to say the truth of how we feel they seem like they are meant to pacify us

You know, I think that's the reason I dont like them.

and I truly believe in the good will and caring instincts of the guys here who want to help

As do I, I hope my words has in no way made any of my brother's here feel that where words have any less meaning to me or anyone else. In the post I have done and in the chat's, I have had them words use to me. And they do help, so if I have upset anyone with what I have said please please know this...that is not what I wanted to do..I love each and everyone of you, and I really enjoy reading where each of you are in your recovery.

The hardest part about them is that they are inadequate to express the depth of feelings.

AMEN BROTHER!!!!!

If the words seem frustrating I suggest you stay with saying the truth about your feelings (as hard as that may be)

lol...I wish I could think of something that would put better meaning to the anger/hurt/lonlyness/and just general feeling of shit.

Thad...thank you for your reply. Very insiteful for me. You really did a good job saying what I had no idea how to. This is how Im feeling about these words. That they just seem to trivalize how I really feel inside when I put all the mask away and truly look at who/what I am.

Well once more guys Im so sorry if anything I have said in this post has hurt anyone. That is not what I wanted to do. I guess I should read the guidlines to the chat again. After all each of us are in a differnt place in our recovery. For me words like healing and such have no meaning. Well no I cant say it is meaningless to me, when one of you tell me how your healing it makes me feel good and yes it even gives me a bit of hope that one day "healing" will mean something to me as well. Thanks again for the reply guys you'll are really to good to me.. (((((hugs))))))
James

 

[outis]

James,

I think of some kind of organic phenomenon when I think of the words "healing" and "process" in terms of moving beyond SA. I had to dig for "phenomenon" above to avoid "process," but how about "growing" instead of "healing?" I need to grow beyond the SA and its effects. I know, it's not much better.

As for why am I the one "healing," the perp needs his own work. I'm not overly concerned with whether that's a form of "healing" or not. At least at this point.

"Process" just shows that this is open-ended, and "journey" to me carries the connotation that the value doesn't depend on reaching some destination, but on how I conduct myself from here on out. It's an interesting metaphor, too. I talk about "being in a bad place" or "wanting to be in a better place" and the notion of a journey fits right in with those ideas. And before I ever conciously thought about that word, I chose my handle and my sig, so I'm partial to using "journey."

The abuses and my reactions to them are certainly a part of who/what I am today, so I think they do define me to some degree, just as good events (meeting my wife, becoming a parent, finding you guys) define me to some degree, too.

I really don't often think in terms of them winning or not winning, etc. I don't believe anyone ever set out to try to destroy me or my life and would be disappointed to learn that I was making things better. They did take what they wanted without regard for me and my life, but I'd bet they don't ever worry about any kind of "winning." When I have to talk myself out of suicide, I think of the people that I would leave behind, and how I would not want to hurt them. I don't believe a perp is going to feel any kind of loss or sadness because I choose not to kill myself. Maybe a bit of relief relative to the risk of exposure if I ever did kill myself, but that's it.

Understand how I feel? I think the guys here can understand what I go through, because you've each had to endure things that were similiar. I'm glad my wife doesn't understand in that sense, and Heaven help anyone who tries to get her to understand. But we're all unique and Mike's right, no one else can know how I feel. They can understand that I feel a certain way about something (if I get around to feeling one of these days), but I think that's different.

Yeah, a really good discussion. Thanks for kicking it off.

Thanks,

Joe

 

[Lloydy]

words are so important to us, and my choice of words is even more important when I write my personal journal.
I often go back and re-write them, I never alter them in any important way but I tinker with the wording sometimes. And I always save it as a different version, that way I get to see if I have subconciously altered something. And sometimes I do add to them.

My first writing was back in 1999, and here's two extracts where I was already concerned with my choices of words.

Ive written this over a couple of days, and gone over it altering it here and there but not much. Certainly not the story, thats remained on the page as it came, vividly, from my memory. But I have had concerns over the language and the detail I have used.
Should I just say sex took place or is it right to describe the events as I remember them in some detail? And what language should I use? Should I say anal sex or is the more graphic fucked me appropriate? Does I performed oral sex sound like a clinical, medical paper? or sucked him off sound like cheap porn?
As I read what Ive written I wonder if using the language of adult movies brings my story down to that level or does it make it more realistic for anyone that reads this? It was realistic for me, and it still is, so I guess Im going for realism. The language doesnt embarrass me, its the language I use anyway amongst friends and with my wife. Not freely and gratuitously but if I stub my toe on the end of the bed I say, fuck it!
I suppose my worry is that the reader will get the impression that I wrote it that way because I am still turned on by the memories and by being graphic in my descriptions I am writing my own porn with me as the star.
That is a worry, and I suppose I have to plead slightly guilty with mitigating circumstances.

Sexual abuse has two words, both powerful and broad in their meaning and although the first word, sexual, has many wonderful connotations the moment it is linked with the second word, abuse, it takes on a dark and sinister meaning.
There is no word that can be linked with abuse to make it appear good, nothing I can think of that softens its impact. Link the word abuse to anything and it drags it all down. Look in a thesaurus and see it alongside violation, ruin, defilement, deceive and force. Abuse is a good word, short and to the point, no ambiguity.
Sex is also a good word, even shorter. But its three letters open up a vista of pleasure, as long as its not preceding abuse.

Yes James, you're right to challenge the words we use, and we should also try to realise that others do disagree with words and phrases we might use.
But they are right for them.

The challenge for us is to choose our words to suit our situation and temperement. If we fully understand the words we use we might find that they don't fit our situation, so we need to look again.
It might sound like nit-picking I know, but by challengeing a word, and maybe finding that we need a different one to accurately describe something, we're looking very closely indeed at what we're trying to describe. As I did above with "abuse" - I haven't found a better word yet.

dave

 

[Wuamei]

Really love this thread James thanks!

Some personal synonyms:

Healing: recovering, becoming whole, growing.

Process: progress, my own time, my own pace.

Journey: struggle, Recovery Road, my way.

I need to learn that the abuse doesnt define me:

I need to learn how & how much abuse has defined me or defined my life or shaped & influenced who I am and what I do.

Abuse isn't the definition of me and what it did is a perversion & confusion of my true self. But I need to acknowledge the abuse and its impact in order to know, find, embrace & be the real me.

Dont let THEM win:

Yes I do think in terms of victory, winning, overcoming, triumphant living.

Lots of ways of looking at this one. Am I in a contest with my perps or not? Definitely I'm in a warfare to overcome what they did to me & what it did to me. Did they win anything by abusing me? Do they win when that abuse continues to hurt me?
Not by my standards of winning. About there standards, I don't give a damn.

By me being here, they have lost:

In a sense yes. Especially my mother. She was trying to make something of me I wasn't, trying to permanently shape my life to her liking. My being here, my recovery work, means she is losing her war to do this to me.

In another sense, she hasn't lost becuz I'm still the one suffering becuz of & struggling against what she did. She's such a narcissist its unlikely
its bothering her in the least.

Then again she's and my other perps are the ones who were so evil, insecure, foolish, shallow, weak
disgusting & hateful the best they could do to try
to be better or stronger, to justify their existences, was to abuse a little boy they had it all over on in power & authority--but not in character & integrity, things they know little to nothing about.

In my book that makes them losers. In my book that makes me a winner.

And since I'm the one writing my book! ...

Victor

 

[dwf]

Hi James,

It's always good for me to see how other men express their anger and frustration.

It's something that I am still not very good at.

So thank you for expressing yours.

A couple of questions:

If you weren't busy being pissed off at the language that some of use to describe our situations, who would you then be pissed off at?

If you weren't frustrated with the language used to describe abuse and recovery, what would you then be frustrated about?

It's great for me to let my emotions go, so that I can see where they might take me to,
and also so that I can see what they're taking me away from.

I don't get to know any of this stuff if I don't have a way and place to try to honestly express myself.

Congratulations on broaching a sensitive subject--you did it in a most caring manner.

It's great for me to see that it is possible to feel anger, frustration but also keep the love and compassion alive in my heart too.

I'm pissed off about being abused. I'm frustrated by my lack of means of expression for my emotions.

And I hope that I'll continue learning how to express myself so that I can continue to grow.

Thanks to you and all the other guys for showing me how.

Regards to my brothers,

 

[Thad]

I had another thought about symbols a wise man said that symbols point to something more infinitly complex and are useful by the degree to which they were transparent in other words if we just heard/saw the word or symbol without them revealing the more complex truth to which they pointed then they have failed as words.

I realized that the words of the 6 or 7 therapists that I was sent to between the age of 7 and 22, were hardly pointing to the truth that alluded me for the rest of my life. They became like a little dance around the truth to further confound me to sooth and placate this petulant child. I hated their words they were worse than meaningless their mannerisms drove me nuts faining interest and projecting superior knowledge

I lived in a world of denial which constantly folded in on itself sending me back to the my worse fear that it was me who was screwed up and all these feelings that something was wrong were just more proof of my defectiveness

I hated the words of denial such that now when I feel someone is avoiding the truth it is a trigger and I feel compelled to nearly yell at them, thats not true! Not always appropriate

Which brings me to smiley faces ARRRRGGGG they set me off they are so opaque - they point only to themselves and deny the truth of feelings much more complex they throw me back into the oppression of my family the mind numbing therapy speak I was subjected to they make me want to yell tell the truth! Say the feelings as fully and truthfully as you can"

[I mean no offense to anyone by this guess I just needed to say my feelings feels good to rant once and a while]