wCHAP.2
9/7/98
IV. What are your life challenges? What must you overcome/achieve to become your best self?
A. Personal?
B. Psychological? (personality deficiencies, traumas to work through, etc.)
C. Job/career?
D. Educational?
E. Relationships? Marriage? Friends?
F. Organizational?
G. Other (describe)?
V. Being sexually abused.[1] (For a person who checked I. D. c. here is material specifically for that person. The general person would not be referred to this area. Each person would be referred to the area relevant to them.)
A. At what age? For how long? By whom?
B. What pleasant feelings do you have about the experience?
C. What unpleasant feelings do you have about the experience?
D. If angry what are you angry about?
E. Are you fearful? What do you fear?
F. What pleasant feeling do you have about the person?
G. What nice things did the person do for you?
H. What unpleasant feelings do you have about the person?
I. What were the worst things the person did to you?
J. What other persons do you have feelings about for their role in your experience? What feelings do you have? What did each person do that you dislike? Positive feelings, negative feelings?
K. How do you feel about yourself for what happened?
1. Pleasant feelings?
2. Unpleasant feelings?
3. Did you or do you now blame yourself?
4. Are you angry at yourself in any way?
5. Do you fear your own feelings or behavior?
6. Which of these unpleasant feelings seems strongest now?
7. In what ways to you feel worse about yourself because of the sexual abuse?
8. What are your positive feelings about yourself because of the experience?
9. Did you show courage in telling someone, or yourself stopping the abuse?
10. What strength allowed you to live through the experience?
11. What skills did you use to get through the experience and the problems it caused?
12. Which feelings do you want to keep?
13. Which feelings do you want to change?
L. Are you angry?
1. Who are you angry at? The abuser? Yourself? Your parents? The world? Other?
2. Are you just annoyed, or are you furious and full of rage?
3. What do you do with your anger? Express it? Keep it bottled up? Do you tell people about your anger? Do you do anything to change the things that make you angry? Do you express your anger in negative ways? Do you yell at people? Do you hurt yourself? What have you done to express your anger in the past? What would you like to do to show people how angry you are? Do you ever secretly think about the things you would like to do to show your anger?
4. Anger can be a positive emotion and can be expressed constructively. You use your anger constructively when you do something to change the situation. And this reduces angry feelings. If you are angry about something that is going on right now, think of ways you can change the situation so that things you dislike will stop.
5. If you are angry about something that happened in the past which you cannot change, think of ways you can keep it from happening again to you or to other people in the future. What can you do to stop yourself from being victimized again? How can you help other children avoid being sexually abused? These are positive ways you can use your anger to help yourself and others.
6. There are also positive ways you can release and reduce your anger. Sometimes it helps to write a letter to the person who abused you. You should not send the letter. It is private, just for you. It is a way to get some of those angry feelings out of you. Because the letter is just for you and not for the person to whom you are writing, you can even write a letter to someone who you don't know anymore or to someone who is dead.
a. Write all your angry thoughts in the letter. Don't hold back....Pour all your anger, guilt, shame and confusion into the letter.
b. Another positive way to express your anger is to talk about the things you are angry about. You let out some of those angry feelings when you tell another person how angry you are and why. The anger doesn't go away completely, but it is no longer trapped inside of you. You no longer feel so bad.
c. Sometimes you feel so much anger that it is hard to talk about your feelings without losing control. Then vigorous physical activity can help reduce your anger to a level where you can think and talk about it without feeling like you are going to explode. Running, chopping wood, hitting a punching bag, beating a pillow, slamming doors, yelling, playing basketball, dancing wildly, chomping on crackers, swimming, anything that takes a lot of energy can help you vent your anger.
7. Feelings of anger often lead to desires for revenge. People sometimes want to take out all the hurt they have suffered on someone else. Usually we can't hurt the person we would like to hurt, possibly the abuser, so we take it out on other people -- or even ourselves. These are negative ways of expressing anger.
a. We usually don't feel any better after hurting someone else.
b. A good therapist or therapeutic community can help one work through the anger in a positive way.
M. Are you fearful?
1. Are you afraid of the dark? Of being alone? Of strangers?
2. Do you have a lot of fears, or just a few? How strong is each one? Which things do you fear the most? Do you fear people, or places, or fear that certain things will happen?
3. Look closely at your fears. Which of the fears that you have listed are realistic fears? Which are not very realistic? How can you avoid the things you fear? What can you do to handle the situation if something you fear does happen.
4. If you are so afraid of certain people or places or things that you change your whole life around just to avoid them, these fears may be called phobias.
N. Are you feeling shame?
1. Many people who were victims of child sexual abuse feel dirty or shameful as a result. They feel different from other people. It can help to know that this is not true.
2. The next time you are in a group of people -- at the movies, at church, in the grocery store -- look around you. One out of every four people you see was also a victim of child sexual abuse!
O. Are you feeling guilty?
1. It was not your fault if someone tricked, trapped, bribed or forced you into sexual contact. If someone touches a child in a sexual way and the child does not stop the contact for whatever reason, it is not the child's fault.
2. Sometimes a child who is being sexually abused takes advantage of the sexual abuse in some way. He or she may use the abuse to gain special privileges or to take advantage of other family members....But even if you did make some mistakes, there is no reason to keep punishing yourself even in your own mind, for mistakes you made or bad things you did. You can forgive yourself for your mistakes. Let them be a lesson to you and a guide to behave better in the future.
P. Depression and suicide
1. When you are depressed, it is hard to believe that your situation can change. Depression makes people view themselves, the world and the future in a very negative way. This view is not accurate even though it seems accurate to the depressed person.
2. Sometimes victims of child sexual abuse become so depressed that suicide seems like the only escape from unhappiness. Unfortunately, suicide is a permanent solution to what often turns out to be a temporary problem.
3. These feelings often can be worked through with the help of a professional therapist.
Q. Self-esteem
1. Self-esteem means liking yourself. It means being able to say, 'I'm OK,' and meaning it. It means believing 'I am an important, worthwhile person just because I am me.'
2. Being treated badly by the abuser may have convinced you that you are worthless and that no one could ever love or care about you. This is not true. Each person in this world has some good qualities and some bad qualities. Each of us is important. Each of us is worthwhile. Each of us can be loved and cherished by many others and by ourselves.
3. You may be surprised to know that most victims of child sexual abuse tell themselves very bad things about themselves. They only look at their negative qualities. So if you have been doing this, your reaction is a common one.
4. Know also that just like everyone else, you have good qualities and strengths as well. There is no reason to deny the bad features in your personality, but there is no reason to deny the good ones either. Now remember, with all your good qualities and bad qualities, you are an important, worthwhile person. You are someone worth caring about!
5. One way to increase your self-esteem is by recognizing your good qualities as well as your bad qualities. Another way to increase your self-esteem is by doing things to help other people. You may believe that you need so much help yourself, you could never help other people. This is not true.
Helping others is the most useful way to increase self-esteem and overcome depression. Depression is magnified and prolonged by being alone, or being with others who are depressed. Doing a kindly act is normally one of the best ways to start feeling better and feeling better about ourselves. Persons who feel needy may think they have nothing to offer others. This thought must be resisted and overcome in the name of good feelings.
R. Trusting
1. Many victims of child sexual abuse have trouble trusting people again. This is especially true for those abused in continuing relationships of incest. This is understandable because these victims were hurt by someone they trusted.
2. Trusting someone is always taking a risk. Sometimes the trust you place in another person will be rewarded. Other times it will be betrayed. It is painful to trust someone and then be hurt by that person. This is true for anyone, not only victims of child sexual abuse.
3. Going through life without trusting anyone is very lonely however....If we look carefully, we can find people who are worthy of our trust.
T. Social skills
1. Victims of incest often find that they do not know how to get along well with people their own age....They may not know how to talk easily to other people or how to make friends.
2. Learning to get along easily with other people is just like learning any other skill. It takes practice. You get better at it gradually. It doesn't happen overnight or by magic. It takes some work. You make some mistakes while you are learning.
U. Relationships
1. Relationships are often difficult for the victims of child sexual abuse. It is hard for girls who have been sexually abused to trust boys or men.
2. The best thing you can do is go slowly in your new relationships. You need time to build up your self-confidence and your trust in other people.
3. Think about the kinds of relationships you want. Are you developing these relationships now? What can you do to find the kind of relationships you want?
V. Attitudes toward sex
1. Many victims of child sexual abuse have come to believe that sex is dirty, shameful or fearful. Such a belief can cause you difficulties in relationships and in sexual adjustment. The belief is wrong.
2. Sex can be a wonderfully enjoyable activity. It can bring you much pleasure and happiness. Sex itself is not wrong. The way you were involved in a sexual relationship was what was wrong. Sex that is tricked, forced or bribed cannot be beneficial to the victim. Sex with a loving, caring relationship can be one of the greatest joys in life.
W. Independence and maturity
1. Victims of child sexual abuse often have been convinced that they have no power or control over their environment or over themselves. This is not true.
2. It is hard to learn to be responsible for yourself and to behave in an independent and mature way if you have not had the chance to make decisions for yourself. It is difficult to learn to take responsibility for your own actions when you never realized you had the power to make choices before.
3. In learning to be independent and mature, you will make some good choices and some bad choices. You are human, therefore, you will make mistakes. Good judgement comes through experience...and experience comes through bad judgement.
4. You have the right and the responsibility to make choices about how you will lead you life. You, and only you, can take responsibility for these choices."
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