Last week I posted two articles related to the Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, Virginia. Between 2001 and 2005, as many as a dozen teenage girls may have suffered sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse from a church youth director. This year, the youth director was long gone, but church leaders felt that the wounds had not be properly addressed and healed. So a few months ago, the pastor and church issued a public apology.
Lawyers for the church’s insurance company warned the church not to accept responsibility for the failings of the youth director. Doing so, the insurance company said, would jeopardize the church’s coverage in case a lawsuit was filed.
The Vienna Presbyterian Church ignored the demands of its insurance company. On March 27, Pastor Peter James preached a sermon that acknowledged the church’s failings.
“Let me speak for a moment to our survivors,” he said. “We, as church leaders, were part of the harm in failing to extend the compassion and mercy that you needed. Some of you felt uncared for, neglected and even blamed in this church. I am truly sorry ”¦ I regret the harm this neglect has caused you.”
Guess what—so far, none of the young women has filed a lawsuit.
Why not? The case would be a slam-dunk. The youth director pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The church accepted responsibility. Several of the now young women have trouble in relationships, because they are still seeking the fantasy that the youth director promised. If they filed suit, they’d win.
My guess is that the women don’t want money. They want to be heard. They want to be validated. And they want to be healed.
Invisible damage
The problem with sociopathic entanglements is that so much of the damage is invisible. Even in cases where we lose money, jobs, homes, and are subject to physical violence, the big wounds are not readily apparent. Before all those obvious injuries occurred, the sociopaths softened us up with emotional manipulation, psychological control and spiritual abuse. These internal wounds not only eat at us, but they make it difficult for us to respond to, and recover from, the obvious physical damage.
After the sociopath, we need to purge our emotional and mental pain. We need internal stability. But when we reach out for help on this level, many of the people around us simply don’t get it.
They don’t understand why we need to talk so much about what happened. They don’t understand how, when we suspected that we were being used, we allowed it to continue. They don’t understand why we are still confused in our thoughts and emotions about the sociopath.
Get over it, they tell us.
These are the people, of course, who are lucky enough to have avoided a direct assault from a sociopath in their own lives. We often understand why they don’t really understand what happened—after all, we were once as clueless as they are. Still, their ignorance of the depth of our pain seems to increase our pain. We feel like we are not being heard, and our suffering is being invalidated.
Debriefing
Karin Huffer, in her book, the Legal Abuse Syndrome, describes this situation in detail in her chapter on “Debriefing.”
Debriefing, she says, is the first step in recovery. In the debriefing process, we tell someone exactly what happened to us, in all the painful detail. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find what Huffer describes as “quality listeners.” These are people who have the ability to hear what we have to say, overriding their own protective filters. She writes:
Protective filters are always at work. If an individual begins to share with another and the data threatens the listener’s feelings of safety, they may try to divert the data or simply not hear it at all ”¦
The function of this protective filter is to maintain the equilibrium of the listener. Victims’ stories shake the foundations that we lean upon in order to feel safe. When it is impossible for friends or family to hear, due to their protective psychological filters shielding them from vicarious pain, the victim feels rejected and alone.
Huffer goes on to describe a formal debriefing process. It’s best done with a quality listener or support group, but an individual can do it alone if necessary.
Support at Lovefraud
I believe that we have many, many quality listeners on Lovefraud. I am always amazed at the thoughtful, comforting and patient comments posted in response to readers who are spilling their traumatized guts.
The reason Lovefraud readers can do this, of course, is because we’ve all been there. We know what it’s like to be deceived, betrayed and assaulted. We know what it’s like to sit amidst the wreckage of what was once our lives. We’re all on the path to recovery, and those of us who are further along help those of us who are just beginning.
Healing, in the end, is an individual journey. To fully recover, we must consciously excavate and examine our pain, and find a way to let it go. But the process is helped immensely when we are heard and validated. I am so glad that Lovefraud offers this to so many people.
Okay….I gotta switch gears here…..GOOD things happening around here right now.
I’ve got a ‘deal’in the making i’ve gotta work on that just came upon me with a client…..could be LIFE CHANGING.
Sorry to keep you hanging…..but i will respond to all later.
Yay EB!!
OH the suspense ~! EB ….So is this client tall dark and handsome and single? and rich?
Invisible damage
The problem with sociopathic entanglements is that so much of the damage is invisible. Even in cases where we lose money, jobs, homes, and are subject to physical violence, the big wounds are not readily apparent. Before all those obvious injuries occurred, the sociopaths softened us up with emotional manipulation, psychological control and spiritual abuse. These internal wounds not only eat at us, but they make it difficult for us to respond to, and recover from, the obvious physical damage.
After the sociopath, we need to purge our emotional and mental pain. We need internal stability. But when we reach out for help on this level, many of the people around us simply don’t get it.
They don’t understand why we need to talk so much about what happened. They don’t understand how, when we suspected that we were being used”
The biggest fear of all is telling someone you “let” this happen to you. I wouldn’t tell a soul in my family what went on here for 11 years. Two reasons, one, Im scared, and two, Im scared because I was systematically trained to be scared, so now……Im even more frightened, because where’s my voice? I still dont trust it.
Being listened to……..My first appointment with my therapist, he was very interested in how I could sit dispassionately and in a third party sort of way describe the events of the last 11 years. Well, I am the third person……the one who watched the whole thing, and felt powerless to stop it.
Why after six months of therapy, do I now need to go back on Monday and start at square one and say I need to start talking about it again………..Because, I want to talk about it as me now. Not the third person…..Maybe Im intregrating parts of myself.
Hurt Terribly,
THIRD PERSON: Yes, there is a great insight in that. You are so right, I think many times we do look at it as from the position of the third person rather than as the active party. We look it it from “outside” and not happening to US.
Good concept. I understand your need to talk about it NOT in the third person. God bless. (((hugs))))
(((((((((((((((((((( SK )))))))))))))))))))))))) How ya doin chica? I’ve been away for a couple of days so I’ve not been able to read any of your posts. just wondering how you’re dealing right now.
(((((((((((((((((((( Candy ))))))))))))))))))) any word? If you’ve mentioned it, I’ve not read it yet.
(((((((((((((((( ONE J ))))))))))))))))))))))))) You are good? I hope?
LL
yes,it would be worth the look in my pasture. It is 15 acres and grass is over 7 feet tall. Retail on these stones is around $200K. Most of what I had/have you cant get anymore the mines are closed or there is an embargo against importing certain stones to US. I do have a metal detecter but the coffee comes in plastic cans now. He had been out fending so there is also dangerous wire all over,I dont have any idea whats what out there. Think Im safer keeping to my yard. It took me all day with a sythe today to just get the weeds and brush down around my coops.
I sadly lost one of my hens this morning. she did die of natural causes.
I have an old friend of 18 years asked me to come over tonight to bbq. I decided not to go. I dont like being around drinking and pot. She actually has knew my spath as well. She has known us both 18 years. She knew about everything he did to me . She was supposed to be my witness last july. She let spath stay at her house the night before cuz he just showed up with a sob story. I couldnt use her testimony at all,my witness had been tampered with. She doesnt understand why Im still angry about it. Had she not been high I may have come out better in court. I hate that stuff & what it does to the brain
HurtTerribly
YESS. Thank you for putting into words another one of my problems that I discovered during my recovery. THIRD PARTY TALK.
MY husband did that, always spoke of himself in the third party. I picked up that habit. It was EASY to do b/c the pain was so hurtful, that I unconsciously NUMBED myself, and part of numbing is to step outside myself. It’s what I did as a child too, when the abuse was happening, I turned into observer mode.
Now that I am healing, I have had to become aware of my habit of third party speak, and CONNECT with myself in the first person. It gets easier to do as my emotional numbing is dissolving.
AND you hit the nail on the head, I am re-intergrating my emotional self. Just another marker that shows I am healing from something I was unaware I had lost, that is to keep ME in the first person. Isn’t that symbolic?! When we lose our identity (I said mine was STOLEN), we no longer say I, me, myself.
I met a woman 1 time while on a train. She and I had 10 hours to kill. She kept talking about this other person. After about 2 hours of listening I asked if this person was her mother or sister. I got such an odd look from her,she said,No Im talking about myself.
She was telling me about being robbed,which happened alot where I grew up. I grew up on a reservation. I dont understand this,please explain why someone refers to themselves in a 3rd party. Is it becuz of being afraid to exist?
is it ok to talk about other things to besides abuse and spaths? I know it may help me to get my mind off 24/7 spath.