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Do Babies Remember?

My oldest memory is of the time I was playing in my garage and found an old ketchup packet. I tried to tear it open with my teeth, but the ketchup ended up squirting in my mouth. Not only did I get sick, but I also did not eat ketchup for the next sixteen years. I was four years old at the time. I am 34 now; a 30-year-old memory is pretty good in my opinion. But this post isn’t about me. It’s about my daughter, Lily. She is sixteen months old, and what I want to know is: Can … Continue reading →

More Reaction to: The Girls Who Went Away

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This is my third blog on the powerful book, The Girls Who Went Away: Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption During the Decades Before Roe v. Wade. One disquieting aspect of the book is a letter written to the author about a 2003 adoption. The writer was a friend of the adoptive parents, who had supported and housed the young mother during her pregnancy, then felt betrayed when she didn’t sign the papers right away. She did end up placing but the letter writer was still uneasy. She felt that the girl would have parented her baby given the right … Continue reading →

When Outing Your Father for Child Rape Breaks Up Your Family

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Sadly fathers do rape their own children and sometimes they even rape their infant children. They can even rape several daughters over a period of years. Although this is a crime involving a prison sentence, many perpetrators go undisclosed. There are many reasons for this, the predominant one being fear. Children notoriously keep quite about sexual abuse because, depending on their age at the time of abuse, they may not even be aware that what is happening to them is abuse. Many adult women who were sexually abused by their fathers do go on to report that abuse to the … Continue reading →

Sexual Assault: Denying Your Anger at the Perpetrator

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One would expect that when a person has been sexually assaulted, the victim of the crime would be extremely angry at the perpetrator. But the act of sexual assault has such a profound effect on a person that what one might expect should happen, doesn’t necessarily happen that way at all. Take the case of Madi. Madi had been sexually assaulted by her boss of seven years. She didn’t report the incident and continued to work with him. However, within weeks of the assault she developed severe anxiety and panic attacks. It was these out-of-control feelings that drove her into … Continue reading →

Anger and Sexual Abuse (4)

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In Anger and Sexual Abuse (3), we looked at how 35-year-old Jenna had been sexually abused by her stepfather as a child and was now taking out her rage at this injustice on the world at large. She had just lost her job as a lawyer and had come for counseling. Jenna had never told her mother of the abuse as she was too frightened to do so as a child and now as an adult, she didn’t see the point in raking up old wounds. Yet Jenna was in enormous pain. She couldn’t maintain long-term relationships due to her … Continue reading →

Anger and Sexual Abuse (3)

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So far in this series on the anger associated with sexual abuse, we have covered the areas of guilt and internalized anger. Today we will examine the phenomena of “anger at the world”, a behavioral trait that is often exhibited by victims of sexual abuse. Jenna had been sexually abused by her stepfather from the ages of 8 to twelve. Her own natural father had died when she was 3, and her mother relied on her stepfather for a decent standard of living. Now 35, Jenna was consumed with rage at anything and everything. She had never told her mother … Continue reading →

Anger and Sexual Abuse (2)

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In Anger and Sexual Abuse (1) we looked at the role of guilt and anger in keeping victims of sexual abuse caught in a twilight world of unrelenting personal pain and anguish. Today we will focus more on the anger itself. The anger may have two origins: the anger directed at the self as a result of sexual assault and the anger directed outwards. The anger directed at the self is particularly destructive. Shawna was a very strong person, but she did not view herself that way. Her particular incident of sexual assault involved being held prisoner and she feared … Continue reading →

Anger and Sexual Abuse (1)

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In The Guilt of Sexual Abuse we looked at the issue of guilt and how it is such a common phenomena as to be almost expected after an incident of sexual assault. Today we will look at the anger associated with this insidious crime. Anger and guilt are the flip sides of the coin of sexual abuse. They are the daily currency for many victims of sexual crimes. But while guilt often appears soon after the abusive incident, anger can take much longer to come to the surface. Guilt, that is, taking responsibility for the abuse upon yourself rather than … Continue reading →

This Week in Mental Health (Nov 5-9)

This week saw several topics covered including the guilt that accompanies sexual assault, and how to help your friend or family member through a psychotic episode. We also began an exciting new series on the effects of street drugs on mental health. Guilt is a specter that often hovers in the lives of survivors of rape and other forms of sexual assault. Yet in our article this week we looked not only at how guilt can stop a person moving forward from the assault but how victims will go to extreme lengths to protect significant others from hearing about their … Continue reading →

Sexual Assault Victims Protecting Others

I read in the weekend paper about a 45-year-old woman who had been repeatedly molested by a minister when she was a small girl. As an adult she reported the matter to the relevant church. It was covered up. Nothing was done about it. Yet this woman hesitated to go to the police. She considered it but decided not to because the minister who assaulted her was a family member and she was concerned that if it went to the police, it would become a public issue and would have an adverse effect on other members of her family. A … Continue reading →