My own depression was genetic in nature, but enhanced by circumstances. My grandmother on my mother’s side suffered from depression and took antidepressants for the second half of her life. I often felt depressed as a child for no apparent reason, and I wrote a lot of violent, morbid poetry. I felt resistant to taking medication for the first 34 years of my life because I didn’t want to believe that I was crazy. Taking pills to change my brain chemistry would be admitting there was something wrong with me.
My stubborn resistance to medication treatment was illogical and self-destructive. When I went to graduate school, I learned about the physiology of the brain and the reasons why antidepressants work. I finally concluded that if my depression was genetic in nature, it was a physical problem. And a physical problem demands a physical solution. For me, thinking positive was never enough. My attempts to improve my outlook on life certainly helped, but the aching in my head never went away.
I finally decided to try an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) five years ago. It is one of the newer antidepressant medications, and I experience no side effects. I can tell you that this medication changed my life.
In the past, my emotional response to the trauma of sexual abuse had turned my genetic depression into a living nightmare. I suffered for many years before giving medication treatment a chance.
Before antidepressants, my life had moved from one depression to the next. I can attest to the fact that this is no way to live. Stubbornness and fear prevented me from making rational decisions about treating my depression. My attitude is very different now. I have more authority in recommending antidepressants to my clients, because I take them myself.
Antidepressants do not make you happy. They are not addictive, and they do not get you high. But they do help balance your brain chemistry so that when you wake up in the morning, you can have an even chance of feeling happy or depressed, depending on your circumstances.
This is the way most people experience their lives. They do not wake up feeling depressed for no reason. It takes a specific event or set of circumstances to make them feel happy or sad.
Even the most positive life includes ups and downs, but chronic depression can rob you of the good times. It took me a long while to decide that I deserved a normal chance of feeling happy. Now I have that, and my quality of life has improved more than I can say.
Even if you are depressed solely as a result of the sexual abuse, anti-depressant medication may help you through a difficult time. If you are struggling with depression, ask your doctor or psychiatrist if medication treatment is appropriate for you.
Of course, antidepressants are not a substitute for working through our emotional issues. For most of us, counseling is another very effective way to reduce depression. Challenging our negative thinking can help to reverse our depressive symptoms.
People who do not suffer from a genetic or biological depression can often discontinue the use of antidepressant medication over time. If you are like me, and your depression has a long, family history, take heart in knowing that you may be able to find an antidepressant that works well with minimal side effects.
Part of the reason I avoided medication treatment for so long was because I wanted to punish myself. I believed that only bad little boys were sexually abused.
It requires a certain amount of self-esteem to seek medical attention. We have to realize that we deserve to feel better, or at least that we deserve a normal chance of feeling happy.
Depression is a normal emotion. Everyone experiences depression from time to time. If your depression becomes crippling, please get the help you need.
Exercise 12-1
Depression Self-Test
-These are the criteria for major depression taken from the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
_____ 1. I feel depressed most of the day, almost every day.
_____ 2. I am less interested and get less pleasure than I used to out of all, or almost all,
of my activities during the day.
_____ 3. I have experienced a change of more than 5% of my body weight in a month,
or have a decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.
_____ 4. I have trouble sleeping, or I oversleep nearly every day.
_____ 5. I feel either agitated or “slow” nearly every day.
_____ 6. I feel tired and have low energy nearly every day.
_____ 7. I feel bad about myself or feel a lot of guilt nearly every day.
_____ 8. I have a hard time concentrating or making decisions nearly every day.
_____ 9. I sometimes have thoughts of death, or feel suicidal.
All of these symptoms can be indicators of major depression. If you are experiencing one or more of the symptoms above, see your doctor or psychiatrist to get a screening for depression. Remember, suicide is never the answer. If you ever feel suicidal, or know someone who is feeling suicidal, immediately contact a suicide hotline, a counselor, or the police to ensure your safety or the safety of the person involved.
Process Questions
How often and in what circumstances do I feel depressed?
What does depression feel like to me?
Have I seen a doctor or psychiatrist to get a screening for clinical depression? Have I followed through on any recommended treatment?
How would my life improve if I overcame my depression?
Which techniques help me to cope with feelings of depression? (Medication, counseling, keeping a journal, talking about it, getting out and engaging in social and recreational activities, exercising at least 3 times a week, light therapy, creative outlets like art or music, positive thinking, etc…)
Stepping Stones to Health
Depression
-Try to identify where you are in the stepping-stones to health, and the next step or steps you need to take.
_____ 1. I feel depressed a lot, and have never done anything to try to reduce my depression.
_____ 2. I was told by someone that I should do something about my depression, but I haven’t followed through.
_____ 3. I have read self-help books, or tried to find information about depression.
_____ 4. I want to reduce my depression because I’m miserable, but I don’t know where to begin.
_____ 5. I have talked with others about depression and asked for advice on how to cope with it.
_____ 6. I am exercising, journaling, or working to change my irrational thoughts.
_____ 7. I have gone to a doctor or psychiatrist to get a screening for depression.
_____ 8. I am actively taking medication or seeing a counselor to reduce symptoms of depression.
_____ 9. I will continue to take medication, seek counseling, exercise regularly, keep a journal of my feelings, work to change my irrational thoughts, and do whatever is necessary to cope with my depression in a healthy way. I deserve a normal chance of feeling happy.
Chapter 13 – Grieving
“When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne,
let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has
given us entrance,
and inevitable,
we will feel about us,
their arms and their understanding.”
-Helen Keller
Grieving is the process of letting go of the things we have lost. Survivors of sexual abuse often feel that they lost their childhood or their innocence. It is important that we allow ourselves to grieve.
Childhood was never meant to be a time for suffering, chaos, or fear. Our childhood is the foundation for the rest of our lives. When this foundation involves pain or instability, our relationships, our self-esteem, and even our perceptions of the world can change for the worse.
A poor foundation in childhood may influence our goals for the future. If our home was ruled by fear and chaos or our relationships were abusive, we may repeat those patterns in our adult lives because we can’t imagine anyth
ing better.
The loss of our childhood is tragic. It is worthy of our tears. We need to cry for the things we lost. Perhaps we were never given the love we needed to develop healthy self-confidence. Maybe we were never taught to solve our problems in healthy ways. Some of us feel a deep, empty hole inside of us.
This loss is real. We need to grieve. We need to release our toxic pain. Healing is the process of letting go of our past, and working towards a better tomorrow.
Men often have a harder time grieving than women. Society tells men that crying is a sign of weakness. Don’t believe it. We are survivors of sexual abuse. We are the strongest men in the world.
I sometimes ask my male clients one simple question. “Does it take more strength to face your pain or to run from it?” Avoiding our pain and our tears is not, and never will be, a sign of strength. As a man, I cry whenever I need to. Expressing my feelings makes me a stronger man, not a weaker one.
Some women also have a hard time crying. These women may have come from homes where emotional expression was never encouraged or allowed. Emotions are not a curse. They are not bad. But they can be frightening.
Society tells us that we should stuff our feelings, or try to fill the holes in our lives with money, beauty, status, or power. Television commercials suggest that if we just drink enough alcohol, our pain will somehow magically disappear. But that isn’t true. Painful feelings don’t go away until we allow ourselves to feel them.
Sometimes we need to cry and really let it out. Other times, just feeling the pain inside of us and having a few tears is enough.
As children, we wanted parents who would protect us and love us. If our parents sexually abused us, we may retreat into denial. We may still have a hard time seeing our parents clearly, even as adults.
Some of us learned to filter our parents’ behavior. We exaggerated the times that they were good or loving and avoided thinking about the times they abused us. We began to see our parents the way we wanted them to be instead of the way they truly were.
If our parents were abusive, it may have been easier to blame ourselves for the abuse. As children, we are vulnerable. Safety is our highest priority. Children do not have the strength to cope with intense feelings of insecurity or fear.
At some point, we have to acknowledge the truth. If our parents abused us, they abused their power. We need to stop justifying what they did. We need to forgive ourselves for what happened. We need to start seeing our situation more clearly. We need to accept that our parents may never change.
Everyone’s situation is different. Some of us can say that our parents were usually loving, while others must admit that their parents were often abusive.
Of course, our childhood was probably not all bad. We may have a few good memories. There were probably times when we felt their love.
It’s time to let go of the way we wanted our parents to be. Healing, in this case, is simply a matter of seeing reality for what it is. Maybe we didn’t get the loving parents we wanted.
If you make excuses for your parents’ behavior, blamed yourself for what happened, or always tried to be the healthy parent your brothers or sisters deserved, I highly recommend that you read Co-Dependent No More, by Melody Beattie. This is an excellent description of the reasons we become codependent, and how to break free from this unhealthy behavior pattern.
Another loss many of us experienced was the loss of our self-respect. Over time, we began to behave self-destructively. We stayed in abusive relationships, turned to drugs or alcohol, acted out sexually, or treated others and ourselves as objects. We failed to respect our bodies and our personal boundaries.
In her book, On Death and Dying, Elizabeth Kubler Ross describes the five stages of grieving. They are denial or shock, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. Letting go is something that happens after we have struggled, processed our feelings of sadness, and gone through depression. It occurs when we stop fighting the reality of what happened to us.
Accepting the fact that we were sexually abused is often a grieving process. We may have lost our hopes for a happy childhood. We may have lost our trust in other people or the safety of this world. We may have lost our self-esteem and our self-respect. When we accept the truth of what happened to us, we may really begin to feel these losses.
Of course, accepting what happened to us does not mean condoning it. We do not approve of what our abusers did, and we may not be ready to forgive. Acceptance simply means acknowledging and allowing the truth. We need to grieve and let go of what happened in our past so that we can move to the next stage of our lives.
Letting go happens when we reach the end of our fear. It is a tremendous gift when we can finally release our anger.
For many of us, sexual abuse leads to deep control issues. There is no way to change what happened to us, and there may have been nothing we could have done to prevent the abuse. Addictions and negative behaviors feed off our desire for control. These compulsive behaviors can choke and stagnate the natural flow of our lives.
Many of us tried to control our feelings in order to avoid the pain. We learned that terrible things can happen to us when we lose control. Terrible things like sexual abuse.
At some point during the abuse, we began to hold on to our pain instead of releasing it. Instead of letting our pain pass through us and out of us, we tried harder and harder to change the way we felt. We were so angry with our abusers. We wanted control over our bodies, our minds, and the direction of our lives.
What did we do with our angry feelings? What did we do with our pain?
I believe we wanted to let go. We wanted to release our feelings of shame, guilt, pain, and self-loathing. We wanted to delete the past somehow, or figure out how to heal.
I used to believe that if I drank enough alcohol, my pain would magically disappear. I smoked cigarettes for more than ten years to feel more confident and take away feelings of anxiety and depression. At one point, I believed that if I could only find someone who would love me enough, it would make me feel better about myself.
What do you think I got for all of my misguided efforts? Bleeding ulcers, smoker’s cough, bronchitis, kidney pain, addiction, low self-esteem, shame, guilt, and further abuse. I was attracted to women who reminded me of my abusers and I stayed with them because I felt like I needed their love. I abused myself with chemicals that made me feel worse about myself, not better. My attempts at feeling better and letting go were a total catastrophe.
The only way to release pain and negative feelings is to allow them to happen. Another word for accepting is allowing. If I had allowed myself to cry, I would not have had to drink. If I had allowed myself to grieve my losses, I would not have had to stay with partners that abused me.
In so many ways, I did not want to feel. Why is it so hard to allow ourselves to feel our feelings? When we allow ourselves to cry, don’t we eventually feel better? When we allow ourselves to feel powerless about sex, won’t we eventually let go of our obsessive need to control it? When we allow ourselves to feel unloved, doesn’t God, a friend, or a pet eventually show us that they love us? We don’t need to be so afraid of our feelings.
The worst thing that ever happened to me when I allowed myself to grieve is that I had to call in sick so I could cry and spend some time alone. That experience didn’t kill me. I’m still here, and I’m healthier because of it.
Allow yourself to experience your feelings. Allow yourself to grieve. It is the way to let go.
Personal Journal Entries
Entry #1: Letting Go
I don’t understand why I feel so much pain lately. Why do I feel this way?
(My wise, inner voice): You have decided that you will never again accept abuse from other people. There’s no reason to hold onto your pain anymore. You can let go of it. When you reject abuse from others, it means you are ready to begin to release the pain of your past.
It’s true. I have decided that I will no longer accept abuse from oth
ers. I have decided that my self-esteem is more important than any relationship.
I need to let go of my fears, and the only way to do that is to allow myself to feel them.
Fear keeps me holding on. Fear makes me want to numb my feelings. Fear keeps me in addiction and despair. Fear pushes me to try and control things I cannot and should not control.
(My wise, inner voice): You can let go of your fear. You can allow yourself to feel your pain. This is a natural process.
The core of this issue is my desire to control the way I feel. I don’t always need to be in control. I can allow myself to feel afraid. I can allow myself to cry. I can allow myself to let go.
Exercise 13-1
Grieving Exercises
1. Ask yourself if there’s anything you need to grieve. Is there any pain you’ve been holding onto or avoiding? Something you haven’t wanted to face about the abuse or your childhood? Take this opportunity to let go. Cry and release in a safe place if you need to.
2. Take some time to think about your relationship with your abuser or abusers. Who were they? What was their relationship to you? How did they treat you? Did you ever wish they had been different? Do you still wish they were someone they can never be? Cry and release in a safe place if you need to.
3. Think about your childhood. What was it like? Were you made to act like an adult at a young age? Did you have a traditional childhood, or was it cut short? Did you lose your innocence or your dreams for a better life? Cry and release in a safe place if you need to.
Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life Page 9