A sensuous child; The List

It has been a while since I added to "The List" and I still have a few more important topics to write for it. This subject once again comes to us courtesy of a well meaning individual I know, and Lena Dunham. Disturbed by the title? Me too!

     This subject is really an extension of the whole discussion around normative sexual behavior in children as they grow up. I've already written about what normal sexual development in kids looks like and when there should be concern (abnormal behaviors). I have also written a lengthy post about sexual play or acting out focusing on the Lena Dunham controversy.  

So a well meaning individual I know told me that they didn't want me to feel bad about my sexual development or being a sexual person because of my quote "having always been a sensuous child". Also they didn't want me to mix up my being a sensuous child with blaming a parent for it. For anyone raised with healthy body boundaries and who was allowed to develop their sexuality normally you reaction should be "EWW, OH MY GOD!" and "WHY WOULD YOU EVER PUT SENSUOUS AND CHILD IN THE SAME SENTENCE?!"

     But for sexual abuse victims, or anyone raised with inappropriate boundaries and body violations you might actually have thought this is something plausible and that it was your fault or the way you were born. This is why I brought up Lena Dunham; she is someone who was exposed to an over sexual environment and somehow  believes she is a sexual revolutionary now and as a child (sensuous child). The only other crowd that gives this idea any thought is the crowd that supports the abusers or is somehow part of that dysfunctional system. They are trying to find ways to explain away the abuse and the child's behavior so they blame it on the child or try to make arguments such as the kid having always been sensuous.

     Let's put this idea to rest. There is no such thing as a sensuous child. There is no stage of sexual development during childhood in which that would ever occur (unless sexual abuse was present). This type of behavior and development would not even begin to occur until adolescence, and even then a very sexual teen who is acting out would still be a concern for whether or not they had been abused. Please see previous list posts about normal sexual development for reference. Kids are not sensuous! That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard about child development, and this is after having taken  developmental psychology during college- not a mention- ever- because it is not true!.

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Trusting your memory; The List (trigger warning)

So while we now know that having a false memory is highly improbable and almost always associated with intentional outside influences, how do we trust the memories we do have or what if we don't have any specific memories at all?

     One of the first things we often read as a survivor beginning the healing process is  The Courage to Heal, so lets start there. In the chapter titled the Healing Process their is a section titled The Essential Truth of Memory, its on page Eighty four. This section deals with how we remember things and suggests that memories are often not a perfect tool to understanding what happened. Distortion occurs "a common example is in the description of size. A small child may remember the abuser as being huge or the abuser's genitals as filling her whole field of vision. One survivor who was abused by a teacher remembered that the school was enormous, with extremely high ceilings and wide corridors. When she went back as an adult, she was shocked at how small it really was"(Bass & Davis, 2008, p. 84). Often these distortions are simply a protective mechanism blocking more traumatic memories.

     Despite inaccuracies in what we remember, those memories are not any less important "although inaccuracies may exist in your memory, you can still work with what you remember as an indication of what you felt (...) she assumed that he penetrated her vagina-perhaps with a finger or his penis-and the feeling was so painful, so cutting, that she, in her child's mind, had no concept for it other than a knife"(Bass & Davis, 2008, p. 84).

     To me most important is understanding that this indication of what you felt is a guide, it is a marker that says something happened to you. You don't have to remember perfectly to know that something happened, or that you strongly believe it was sexual abuse. Those memories do not come out of nowhere, they are not the product of a twisted imagination. They are your mind trying to deal with and make sense of what happened and it's way of communicating that to you. We don't have a reference for sexual abuse at a young age or know how to process it, so our brilliant minds store it away and protect us from remembering, or scatter the pieces of memory about in a hide and seek sort of fashion but the clues are changed to fit what we can handle.
     
     Another major indicator about how we felt is our body and its memories.  Our body is a permeable sponge with thoughts and feelings of its own "memories are stored in our bodies- in sensations, feelings, and physical responses. Even if you don't know what took place, memory fragments of what you suffered can endure. You may be assailed by unexplained physical pain or sexual arousal, fear, confusion or any other sensory aspect of the abuse"(Bass & Davis, 2008, p. 76-77). Body memory has been one of my indicators of abuse, as well as my overall health during childhood and the years leading up to my decision to heal. My body had always been screaming loudly in its own fashion that something was terribly wrong and that something had happened. This along with how I felt in my home environment and the memories I have of the abuse has helped to create a really solid map that says, "yes this happened, and it happened to me".

     What if there are no memories? If there are no memories but you are suspicious that something happened, that feeling is a red flag to pay attention to. I would then begin to look for those other indicators, such as discussed above. "You may not recall particular incidents such as the one this survivor describes, but you may discover that you know more than you think you do about the environment in which you grew up"(Bass & Davis, 2008, p. 86). So if you feel de-railed by doubt or because their is pressure and doubt from others, or your abuser is trying to discredit you, take heart. Not having memories does not make you crazy or in anyway say you have an imagination that has run wild.
     This is the point in time to take care of yourself and start paying attention to what other indicators there might be. If you are unsure and have not told anyone yet, seeing a therapist can be really helpful. I would recommend taking your time and take all things into consideration. With something as serious as sexual abuse preparing ourselves and standing solidly in what we know is of great benefit when we come forward and voice what has happened to us, and if we choose to confront our abuser(s).


Kali Munro M.Ed psychotherapist wrote a lovely blog post (2001) titled Trusting Your Memories of Child Abuse. You can read her post here:http://kalimunro.com/wp/articles-info/sexual-emotional-abuse/trusting-your-memories-of-sexual-abuse

      Abusers and their defenders often cite that the child never told anyone about the abuse, and us it as  evidence to say the abuse never occurred and them only doing so now means they made it up. This Psychology Today article; Why don't child sex abuse victims tell, discusses false memory. "Of course memories fade and become less reliable over time. Of course memories of specific details of events can be wrong. Of course memories of events that are witnessed for the very first time are subject to observerbiases, missed aspects of the events, and sensory information that is misinterpreted. However, the big picture is unlikely to be misremembered" (Allen, David, M.d, 2012).
 http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/matter-personality/201210/why-dont-child-sex-abuse-victims-tell

Further resource reading:

Is the Child Victim of Sexual Abuse Telling the Truth
http://www.secasa.com.au/pages/is-the-child-victim-of-sexual-abuse-telling-the-truth/

Myths/Facts Regarding Child Sexual Assault
http://www.porterco.org/index.aspx?nid=341

If you are a survivor you might need this someday; the list

There comes a day when all the careful considerations you have made as to why you know that you were really and truly sexually abused get assaulted.

    Even though you have read books, made your therapist explain over and over why you are not imagining things, there will be a day when you stand shakily on not so solid ground. So when you get there, because I have been there, I want you to have this methodical list to read over and over to yourself. Make it your mantra. I am going to help you systematically defend against every manipulative, destructive thing used against you to try and discredit you and make you doubt yourself.

Let's start with a favorite shall we. The first line of defense by abusers and those who support them; False Memory Syndrome.

Here is the wikipeidia definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory_syndrome

 I would not recommend going to the FMS foundation site, there is plenty of resources concerning them without you having to suffer the "ick" factor of using their site.

Truths about False Memories:

- It has been found that in a scenario such as a bank robbery individuals may not accurately remember details of the incident or the perpetrators. They may even wrongly describe what the perpetrators look like. However no one was ever confused as to whether or not the robbery occurred.

- Researchers have successfully implanted false memories of minor anxiety/trauma into individuals as well as non anxiety/ trauma memories. However what you need to understand is that none of these were childhood abuse or childhood sexual abuse memories. It is not ethical to subject subjects to such a test.
One study got adults to remember details of being lost in a mall as a child even though they had not. But even this is not black and white, because it relies on memories that are common occurrences. What child has not at one point been lost or thought they lost their parents for even just a moment in a crowd? And we know that we do not accurately remember things so the researches suggesting details that feel real to that scenario makes it easy to understand why the subjects would have thought it a real memory. It felt like a real memory and it even relied on a very real memory/feeling. In other words it took root because the subject probably did have a moment in childhood were they got lost or lost site of their parents in the crowd.
As I understand it, this means that the researches are not able to implant a false memory that does not have connection to a true memory. And just like with the bank robbery, abused individuals may have fuzzy details but are not confused as to whether or not something happened.
It has also not been proven that they could truly implant a false memory of something so traumatizing as abuse.

- In a therapy setting due to the consideration of suggestion affecting what the survivor remembers therapists in most cases don't use guided questions/ suggestions about abuse or go digging to see if they can find any memory of such trauma.

- External factors and influences would need to be present for a false memory to exist.

- Getting subjects to use their imagination was also needed for some studies conclusions.

Sources:
http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/dallam/6.html

"The "False Memory Syndrome" is a controversial theoretical construct based entirely on the reports of parents who claim to be falsely accused of incestuous abuse. In 1993, the FMSF noted that "False Memory Syndrome" is "a condition that needs to be considered and then confirmed or rejected when further information emerges" ("Our Critics," April 1993, p. 3). The current
*page 30*
empirical evidence suggests that the existence of such a syndrome must be rejected. False memory advocates have failed to adequately define or document the existence of a specific syndrome, and a review of the relevant literature demonstrates that the construct is based on a series of faulty assumptions, many of which have been disproven. Likewise, there no credible data showing that the vague symptoms they ascribe to this purported syndrome are widespread or constitute a crisis or epidemic.
This does not imply, however, that memory is infallible or that all people who are accused of sexual abuse are guilty. Both continuous and delayed memories are subject to distortion, and there are valid reasons to be suspicious of memories that are recalled only after the extensive use of suggestive techniques. Nevertheless, common sense and professional practice dictates that claims about a new diagnostic category reaching epidemic proportions require scientific substantiation. The public policy issues impacted by the false memory controversy are so important, that they deserve the most careful and intellectually honest scholarship that the academic and professional community has to offer. In the absence of any substantive scientific documentation, "False Memory Syndrome" must be recognized as a pseudoscientific syndrome that was developed by an advocacy group formed by people seeking to defend against claims of child abuse."

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

"We found this "imagination inflation" effect in each of the eight events that participants were asked to imagine. A number of possible explanations come to mind. An obvious one is that an act of imagination simply makes the event seem more familiar and that familiarity is mistakenly related to childhood memories rather than to the act of imagination. Such source confusion when a person does not remember the source of information can be especially acute for the distant experiences of childhood."

How often are Reports of Abuse False

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/res/csa-acc.html

"Research with children whose sexual abuse has been proven has shown that children tend to minimize and deny abuse, not exaggerate or over-report such incidents."

Some great things to read on this subject:

Woody Allen and the History of False Memory Syndrome

https://overland.org.au/2014/02/woody-allen-and-the-history-of-false-memory-syndrome/

A Child Abuse Investigators View

http://thedailybanter.com/2014/02/a-child-abuse-investigators-view-of-the-woody-allendylan-farrow-case/

In consideration of adding a lot of links/resources I am going to break the list into a series of connected posts.

The Tribal mind

This is an interesting section from Women's Bodies, Women's wisdom by Christine Northrup. It is really helpful in understanding the dynamics of families when abuse is involved. 

     Though it is important to note that Northrup's use of the word "tribe" is very specific and focuses only on a family unit. It is not meant to refer to tribes in a cultural sense, it is a reference to the sociological structure and function of individual families. These individual families could be said to have a tribal structure and pattern to their functions, and cultural influences will certainly help to inform what those patterns and functions are. However a true tribal (cultural) structure cannot be pinned down to but a few consistent elements, as cultures are so varied. But from a sociological and even archetypal viewpoint, the individual family structure does have consistent elements to the structure, and is the reason Northrup can apply the term "Tribal mind" here.

     “The tribal mind is not an individual mind. The tribal mind is primarily a collective brain that seeks to hold onto its own and fight for its own survival in the world. The tribal mind is concerned with loyalty, not love, kindness, or tenderness. What the tribe refers to as “love” is really obligation to the tribe. An example of this is a family member who says to another, “If you really loved me, you'd come to visit your family and me more often.” Tribal consciousness, then, is not a high-level, highly evolved consciousness. Yet we all share it to some degree, and many women admit that as they get older, they can hear that tribal mind within themselves. “I sometimes hear my mother's words coming right out of my mouth, and I can't believe it,” patients often tell me. Above all, the tribal mind seeks stability by keeping everythingthe same, e.g., family holidays and birthdays become “obligations,” not joyful times of sharing.I sometimes refer to the tribal mind as “crabs in the bucket.” If you have a bunch of crabs in a bucket and one crab tries to escape overthe edge, the other crabs will always pull the escapee back down with the rest of them. The same sort of thing often happens to women and their families as the women decide to break free from limiting patterns. Almost invariably, family members try to sabotage her efforts- at least initially.     Countless women have had the experience of confronting their parents about abuse or incest soon after remembering these events only to find that their parents deny these allegations outright. The unconscious motive to preserve the tribe is the reason so many parents deny having ever violated a tribe member. At some level, their tribal memory bank has absorbed the memory very differently form the waythe individual member records the same event. The person who is waking up from the tribal trance is almost invariably seen as a “traitor” to the family.(…) Most tribes or families do not deliberately try to poison their members-they are merely handing down what they recognize as tribalwisdom, even in the form of limiting and painful ideas. It is useful to think of yesterday's tribe as today's dysfunctional family.”Christiane Northrup M.D.