To Be a Survivor of Childhood Sexual Abuse is to Be Subjected to Constant Gaslighting and Distraction

     The conspiracy of silence - regarding child abuse - works around-the-clock to concoct myriad new ailments, each year, in order to distract from children's needs to be kept safe from their abusers.

     Each of these ailments, real or imagined, is used - one after another - to keep victims of abuse "in their place" and silent. This is done by suggesting that all of the abuse survivor's problems are caused either by themselves, or by a single ailment (which is, conveniently, never child abuse).

     Here is a fictional dialogue that I wrote - partially based on real experiences, and partially based on my research into psychiatric methods which arose during the 1980s and 1990s - which should help explain what it is like to have been subjected to sexual abuse as a child, and to not be believed.

     This article explains how my "thinking" I was abused, has caused my family and therapists to suggest that I have ailment after ailment, almost as if they were intentionally trying to distract from the initial underlying trauma.

     [Note: I have not been accused of having Reactive Attachment Disorder or pathological demand avoidance. These were included solely in order to cover the range of ailments to which people's memories of abuse have been falsely attributed (or blamed). My mother and third therapist did suggest that I have a brain tumor.]

     "Why are you hiding in the closet?"

     I'm hiding from my father because he sexually abused me. I don't feel safe coming out. Could we talk about this?

     "Why are you irrationally afraid of your father? You're not forming healthy bonds with your caretakers. I think you have Reactive Attachment Disorder."

     No, I don't. I'm afraid of my father because he sexually abused me. And Reactive Attachment Disorder is a fake disease. The recommended treatment (usually for children previously victimized by their caretakers) was more forcible touching.
     [Note: You can learn more about this by researching Dr. Neil Feinberg; the Attachment Center at Evergreen, Colorado; and the "death" (murder) of Candace Newmaker during "Rebirth Therapy".
     http://www.topic.com/born-again
     http://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,,509588,00.html]

     "Are you hiding in the closet because you're gay?"

     I'm not gay. I was forced to have gay sex. There is a difference. You aren't listening to me. Someone hurt me. Will you protect me?

     "Maybe you're transgender. Have you thought about that?"

     Nope, the reason I seem effeminate is because my abuser worked for years to make sure that I was as submissive as possible.

     [Note: The part of the medical establishment which has been overtaken by incorrect gender ideology has been telling autistic teenage girls that they can become men. You can learn more about that by clicking on the following link:
     http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/overlooking-autism-to-convince-girls-they-are-boys/ar-AA1dHREe?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=43ddda03cc75429abcb7cffb72704a11&ei=5]

     "Have you considered that you might be depressed?"

     Have you considered that my depression might be rational, and caused by the abuse that occurred?

     "What if you're mistaken? What if the abuse was an accident?"

     It wasn't. I was sexually abused on purpose. Forcible touching - occurring repeatedly, and for that long a time frame, and with that amount of pressure - could not have been unintentional. I was subjected to a malicious, criminal act, intentionally.

     "That's so vindictive. I think you have a problem forgiving people."

     I think that forgiving abusers too much results in more abuse taking place. Also, there's a rapist on the loose. Could we talk about that for a second?

     "Wow, you just can't let this go. It's like you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

     It's not obsessive to want all rapists to go to jail.

     "You're clearly not recovered from this. Get therapy. You need therapy."

     No, I need my rapist to be imprisoned. And I already went through three therapists. I literally already did what you're asking me to do. The most healing thing that could happen is if my rapist went to prison.

     "You seem dead-set on your alleged abuser going to prison. Would you accept financial compensation, resulting from a settlement in a civil trial?"

     No. I am not a whore who hasn't been paid yet. I am a rape and incest survivor. No amount of money can fix what happened to me. If I seek monetary damages, then I will only be accused of being a greedy, money-hungry liar, who is making false accusations and is only after his abuser's money. Please jail my rapist so he's not out walking the streets, a danger to children; that will help me heal in a way that money simply cannot.

     "If you won't go to therapy, or pursue a monetary settlement - like I advise you to - then you clearly have problems doing what you're told. You might have Oppositional Defiant Disorder."

     Nope, I was sexually abused. And my first therapist told me that I don't have O.D.D.. Also, if I wanted to enslave someone, or kill someone, or corral people onto a train in order to commit genocide, then I would tell people that my victims have Oppositional Defiant Disorder. That would be the easiest way to convince people that the victims' disobedience results from mental deficiencies that can only be dealt with through physical removal from society. The notion that Oppositional Defiant Disorder is a real thing, rests on the false assumption that all resistance, shown by children, is born out of "vindictiveness" and "hostility" that is unfounded and which has no cause. All children suspected of having O.D.D. should be asked if they feel abused or neglected by their parents, and it should be determined whether the alleged abuse or neglect actually took place. If it did, then criminal charges should be filed against the parents. I do not have O.D.D.. Nobody has O.D.D.. Obedience is not, in itself, a virtue; and refusal to obey does not indicate mental illness.

     "You won't do as you're told. Seriously, what if you have pathological demand avoidance?"

     What if I don't like to be told what to do, because consent matters to me a lot, because I was sexually abused? This condition is also known as "pervasive drive for autonomy" and "Rational demand avoidance". Avoiding unreasonable demands - like that I allow my father to abuse me, and continue to control my life decades later - is not pathological; it is rational. Knowing that I'm allowed to say "no" to something - even if it's something that I'm expected to do - makes me feel safe, and tells me that my needs and boundaries are being respected. Saying "no" also helps me buy time before having to make a final decision; time which I use to obtain more information about what I'm being asked to do, so that I can make an educated decision about whether I will be able to do it completely and do it well.

     "Think about it. You avoid demands. You're antisocial. You don't like to be touched... You're probably autistic."

     Nope; I don't like being touched without my permission, because I was sexually abused. Even people who weren't sexually abused, don't like being touched without their permission.

     "You don't want the T.S.A. to touch you, you have a problem with authority..."

     No, I just don't like being touched on the genitals, against my will, by an ugly fat government employee, and I think it's weird that you seem to like it.

     "You might be autistic, too, though. Or you might have Asperger's Syndrome."

     Yeah, well if I do have autism or Asperger's, then all my other problems (including the sexual abuse I suffered) will be blamed on autism. I'd rather focus on putting my rapist in jail, instead of getting distracted by superficial problems which resulted from the initial abuse.

     "Why would I blame all your other problems on autism?"

     For the same reason that you blamed the fact that I believe I was sexually abused (and want to do something about it) on homosexuality, transgenderism, depression, irrational fear, O.D.D., P.D.A., O.C.D., hallucinations, problems with authority, and autism; instead of blaming the person who committed the abusive acts.

     "What if you hallucinated the abuse? What if you need to be put on antipsychotics?"

     What if most antipsychotics are neuro-tranquilizing sedatives, and you're trying to damage my nervous system, in order to make it more difficult for me to remember or talk about the abuse? What if people have suffered loss of ability to speak after using the same kind of atypical antipsychotics that I was prescribed (but refused to take)? You are trying to drug me and sedate me.

     "Seriously, you could have False Memory Syndrome."

     The term False Memory Syndrome was coined by Peter Freyd, in order to damage the credibility of his daughter, who accused him of sexual abuse. The term "false memories" is literally a cover-up for child molestation, which was invented by a child rapist.

     "Everybody knows that your claims are not credible, because you have struggled with mental illness, drug addiction, and homelessness."

     Do sexual abuse victims not struggle with those things? I got addicted to drugs in an attempt to relieve the anxiety that my abuse caused; I know that drug use is a maladaptive coping mechanism and no longer use hard drugs. Mental illness is not proof that I lack credibility; rather, the fact that I experienced mental illness was a direct result of being physically, sexually, and emotionally abused, and then manipulated and gaslighted about that abuse in an attempt to make me forget. Almost everyone who was abused by a parent (and manages to get away) ends up running away from home - or moving far away from where they were born - in an attempt to avoid the abuser.

     [Note: To learn more about the causal link between sexual abuse and psychosis, please read any or all of the following five articles:
     http://www.madinamerica.com/2023/07/study-discovers-gender-specific-links-between-childhood-trauma-and-psychosis/
     http://www.madinamerica.com/2018/11/researchers-suggest-traumatic-experience-may-cause-psychotic-symptoms/
     http://www.madinamerica.com/2018/03/meta-analysis-finds-childhood-trauma-linked-psychosis-symptoms/
     http://www.madinamerica.com/2018/04/study-finds-connection-trauma-psychosis-children/
     http://www.madinamerica.com/2022/03/sexual-assault-age-risk-factor-psychosis/]

     "You're calling yourself a victim. Clearly you have a victim mentality."

     But I am the victim of a crime. I am a victim, for the purposes of my case against my father. Admitting that I was victimized does not mean that I have a victim mindset or mentality. It would be irrational to deny that I am a victim (of my father's crimes). Therapist Teal Swan says, "A person doesn't develop a victim mentality unless they've actually been victimized."

     "You are clearly angry at your father. Why can't you admit that you may have aggravated his actions in your own mind? He was just a very strict father."

     It is perfectly normal and rational to be angry at someone who raped you. Being an extremely strict parent - just like being a very touchy-feely parent - can cover-up for some really sick behaviors. My mind has not exaggerated, nor aggravated, my father's actions; he was 38 and 39 years old when he committed most of his crimes, against myself, at age eight and then nine. The only facts that could be blamed for "distorting" my memory of the events, are the facts that I was much smaller then, and that I am big and strong enough to fend-off similar attacks if they were to happen today.

     "What if you have a brain tumor that is pushing up against part of your brain, making you believe you were abused?"

     ...And you would rather run the risk of exposing me to radiation poisoning, searching for that brain tumor? You intend to give me cancer under the guise of searching for a cancer?



     "But how do you know that what I'm suggesting, isn't what really happened?

     Because you're making these things up off the top of your head. And because, if you thought that one of those things really is what happened, then you'd be focusing on that one thing consistently, instead of pointing to a dozen other excuses and jumping from one bogus theory to the next.

     What are you going to suggest next? That I was abducted by an alien rather than a human being? Are you going to tell me that aliens subjected me to anal probing, and that that's why I "think" I was sexually abused?
     Now... I repeat... There's a child molester on the loose. Can we focus on putting him in prison?

     [Note: You can learn more about my views on the similarities between alien abduction and child abduction, by reading my February 2021 article "Opinion: Israelis Probably Lying About Making Contact with Extra-Terrestrials", available at the link below:

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/02/opinion-israelis-probably-lying-about.html]

     You can learn more about gaslighting and medical gaslighting by visiting the following link:
     http://me-pedia.org/wiki/Medical_gaslighting#:~:text=Medical%20gaslighting%20is%20when%20doctors,that%20they%20are%20not%20sick.]

     Visit the link below in order to see an Australian political cartoon about misdiagnosis:
     http://www.madinamerica.com/2019/05/young-koala-mental-health-problem/

     

Written and published on June 29th, 2023.
Edited and expanded on June 29th, July 25th, and July 27th, 2023.

Images created in mid-June 2023.