As difficult as it is to write this I want those of you who feel like I describe to know you are not alone. This subject is never talked about and I am taking the first steps to change that. This is my second post about it. I encourage you to use this to open a dialogue with a fellow survivor – because you are not alone in how you feel.
Today after I finished processing through one of my traumas I had my head bowed down and I said to my therapist, “Do you know how I feel every time we do this?”
The reliving of the details of what happened. The sounds, smells, and feelings, the body sensations that all come back to life. They make me feel dirty. It’s the shame again.
He said he can understand how I would feel like that. My abusers took what God meant for good and used it for bad. That’s the very definition of abuse – and rape. Taking what was meant for good, God created sexual desires in us to be shared within a marriage, and they stole it away and used it for their own pleasure.
Which leaves us confused. There may have been pain, fear, tears, all kinds of emotions and other feelings while it happened, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t activate a sexual desire within us. A desire God created for us to experience within the confines of marriage.
That confusion leads to shame and condemnation of ourselves when we felt our bodies betrayed us. We think we are bad, horrible, people for feeling pleasure. Society can add to this by the victim blaming we see where people will ask sexual assault survivors how their bodies reacted and use this against them claiming “they wanted it”.
Our bodies reacting to a God given sexual desire does not mean we wanted anything. It is a reaction in which we have no control over once our abusers chose to activate it. Our bodies simply did as they were created to.
I continue to pray for God to help me process and heal through each trauma so that He can begin to take away this shame I feel. The silent shame. God doesn’t want us taking on other’s sins. Which is what we do when we take on shame.
We are not dirty and we are not condemned for being sexually abused and raped. It was our abusers sin. We did nothing wrong.
Today ask God to open your eyes and your heart to His love and hope for us. To rid our lives of this silent shame so that we can allow Him to heal our brokenness and allow Him to receive the glory.
God,
I need your help today. Rid my life of this silent shame of feeling responsible for the desires You gave me that others used in sin. Open my eyes to the truth. Continue to heal me on this journey as I recover.
Amen
© 2019 Susan M. Clabaugh. All Rights Reserved.
0 comments on “The Silent Shame – Part II”