One of the people I love most in all the world was a sexual abuse survivor.
When I knew her, she was already an old woman, with black hair and a wrinkled face and a smile that transformed her being. She loved me with all her heart, but with me—as with all people in all relationships—she was impatient and easily angered. She taught me many things about life, but always, she carried within her a sense of alienation I sensed but did not fully understand.
I didn’t find out about the sexual abuse until after she died, because she never told me.
She did try to tell me once. She had been talking—as she often did—about her brother, how mean he was and how he teased her. “He did that to me when we were young,” she said, “and I had to carry that all that time inside. That was my mean streak. That’s what made me so mean.”
Back then, I was unfamiliar with sexual abuse, so I thought she was talking about teasing and didn’t understand what she meant. When her sister told me, after she died, I was angry. I wished vengeance on her brother, thought that I hated him—until I realized the event was past, and abusers carry their own wounds.
Since that time, I have known or counseled a number of people who were sexually molested when they were young. Always, the knowledge makes me angry inside—floor-smashing, wall-kicking angry. Almost always, I cry. Always, always, sexual abuse is a topic bigger than I know how to grapple with.
If someone you know honors you by sharing their sexual abuse trauma, you may, like me, feel inadequate. How—when I have so little experience—can I counsel a sexual abuse survivor who is looking to me for help? How can I be their friend?
Recently, I attended a sexual abuse conference led by Trudy Harder Metzger, who experienced abuse as a child. She gave some helpful pointers for counselors and friends of the sexually abused.
- Honor their boundaries. An abuse survivor has had their boundaries violated; show them respect by respecting their boundaries. Invite them to talk; don’t force them. If they say no, respect that.
- Listen without judgement.
- Know your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t go deeper or spend more time with an individual than you can handle physically and emotionally. If you try to do too much, you will burn out and you will let them down, so you help them best by respecting your own needs. Don’t try to single-handedly deal with mental illness or trauma you are not equipped to handle. Refer the individual to a skilled counselor or health professional while continuing to offer friendship and emotional support.
- Set aside a time of self-reflection after dealing with a trauma victim. Reflect on what worked and what didn’t work, on your own feelings as well as theirs, and on what you have learned from the experience that can help you in future interactions. Writing is an ideal way to do this.
- Do not carry their trauma with you. Help them and give them to God.
- Be a friend, not a fixer. In the long term, they will have to solve their own problems. You can’t do it for them. They need a friend, not a magician.
- Keep a healthy emotional distance. When you are too close to the situation, you lose your ability to see it clearly. For your sake and the individual’s sake, give yourself space.
I wrote down several powerful quotes from Ms. Metzger which were helpful to me and which may also help you or your sexually abused friend.
“If I acknowledge and deal with it, I have power over it.”
“There is absolutely nothing that God doesn’t redeem, including sexual abuse.”
I recently published an article with The Dock, an Anabaptist teachers’ resource, on child sexual abuse among the Anabaptists, with some suggestions for guarding against it in a school setting. Visit The Dock to read that article, titled “The Stranger Within.”
Included with that article is a list of sexual abuse resources which I will also share here. Many of these resources were suggested to me by people more knowledgeable in the subject: John Coblentz, a pastor and former counselor who has written on the topic of sexual abuse; Estalee Martin, a counselor with Deeper Life Ministries; and Joshua Strickler of Life Counseling Ministries.
If you or someone you love is dealing with abuse, these resources may help. Although I have not included counseling centers/training centers as resources in this post, there are many organizations which provide help and counseling for sexual abuse survivors. Do not hesitate to look for and find the help you need.
Many of the titles below are available from the Deeper Life Bookstore or Christian Learning Resource.
Stories of Sexual Abuse Survivors
- Between 2 Gods: A Memoir of Abuse in the Mennonite Community by Trudy Harder Metzger
- Dorie, the Girl Nobody Loved by Doris Van Stone
- Glenda’s Story: Led by Grace by Glenda Revell
- One Man’s Story of Forgiveness (In DVD format. Available from NYM Ministries.)
- A Wildflower Grows in Brooklyn: From Striving to Thriving after Sexual Abuse and Other Trauma by Julie Woodley
Books to Aid in Understanding the Impact of Sexual Abuse
- The Spiritual Impact of Sexual Abuse by Diane Langberg
- Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Dr. Judith Hermann. (Although not written from a Christian perspective, this book is considered a classic in the study of abuse and its effects.)
Books to Aid in Healing from Sexual Abuse
- Beauty for Ashes by John Coblentz
- Door of Hope: Recognizing and Resolving the Pains of Your Past by Jan Frank
- On the Threshold of Hope by Diane Mandt Langberg
- Shattered Vows: Hope and Healing for Women Who Have Been Sexually Betrayed by Debra Laaser
- When Victims Marry by Don and Jan Frank
- The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Dan Allendar and Karen Lee-Thorp
Additional Resources for Healing
- God’s Road to Recovery: Anger, Guilt, Fear by Dr. Clair Schnupp (In CD format. Available from NYM Ministries.)
- God’s Road to Recovery: Healing Inner Pain, Overcoming Shame and Contempt, Repentance and Forgiveness by Dr. Clair Schnupp (In CD format. Available from NYM Ministries.)
Books to Aid Counselors/Friends/Church Leaders of Sexual Abuse Survivors
- Caring for Survivors of Sexual Abuseby Basyle Tchividjian and Justin S. Holcomb
- Counseling Survivors of Sexual Abuse by Diane Mandt Langberg
- What the Bible Says to Abuse Survivors and Those Who Hurt Themby Victor Vieth
A Book to Aid Perpetrators of Sexual Abuse
- Sexual Offending and Restoration by Mark Yantzi
Books on Sexual Purity/Sexual Addiction
- At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry (for men) by Steve Gallagher
- Create in Me a Pure Heart (for women) by Steve and Kathy Gallagher
- Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction by Dr. Mark Laaser
- Living a Pure Life by John Coblentz
- Sexual Sanity for Men: Recreating your Mind in a Crazy Culture by David White
- Finally Free: Fighting for Purity With the Power Of Grace by Heath Lambert
A Book to Aid in Teaching Children Sexual Boundaries
- My Body Is Private by Linda Walvoord Girard and Rodney Pate
Thank you, Luci. It takes courage for those of us who weren’t sexually abused to step into the battle for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
I have questions about the book Protecting Your Purity by KAH. I’ve read some quotes from it that I felt were degrading women. But I haven’t read the whole book, so I’d like to read it and do a review on my blog.
Thanks again for engaging with this tough issue!
Hi Rosina, thanks for commenting. Protecting their Purity wasn’t recommended to me by any of the counselors above, and I hadn’t read it myself, but knew it just came out and thought I would include it in the list. However, after looking it over, I find some helpful things but also some perspectives I disagree with and which I don’t think are helpful to sexual abuse survivors. I’ve taken this book off the list of recommendations.
Thanks for all the helpful info you have in this blog :) You have some very helpful things to practice for a any person with problems….Listen & Love and take care of yourself in the process. I got too involved with a friend who was having emotional issues and my husband told me to “take a break” from this friend for a while. Thanks for caring “for people” !!!
I am so glad you found this post helpful. I agree that the suggestions listed here could apply to helping with any emotional issues, not just sexual abuse. Thank you for commenting!
How about addressing the causes and prevention of this scourge? The premise of male authority and superiority which underlies abuse. Any group who has submission of fellow humans at its core is intrinsically EVIL. Dress it up as some version of god’s love for the simple and ignorant. It is not. It unquestionably breeds abuse.
Male authority is used to abuse young boys every day as well!
Too real for those who live this life and reap the whirlwind? Yes it is. Ignoring this fact means you are nothing If not COLLABORATORS.
Teach your girls they are not to be silent or submissive, then write a blog that celebrates PREVENTION. Teach your boys to respect women as equals.and fear no adult male.
You care for no one if all you choose time after time, is to clean up the aftermath. You are of equal BLAME.
Purity absolutely DEGRADES wimen, but you seem to have no idea. Deep introspection and change are the mark of true human advancement, not the usual biblical quotations which have destroyed all too many lives, especially women and young girls and boys.
As a man who was abused by a pastor, I have come to realize, your ‘godly’ perspective hurts all humanity.
Is there no hope for you and your kind?
Hi Jerry, I don’t know the answer to your final question, but I know it was rhetorical, so we’ll leave it at that. I have a question for you as well. When you say purity degrades women, do you mean the teaching of saving sex until marriage degrades women? Are you promoting “free love”? Or did you have something else in mind? This is not a rhetorical question, and if you care to answer it, I will better understand what you’re trying to say.
I agree that only picking up the pieces and doing nothing to aid in prevention of abuse is wrong. Thank you for that reminder. At this stage of my life, I am mostly at the picking-up-pieces stage. Prevention is a much larger subject, because there are so many factors in it I have no control over. I hope, as I learn more about abuse and how to get to the root of it, to contribute more to preventing it. One huge prevention of abuse is talking about it: making people aware that it happens and where it happens and what to do if it happens. Education is a powerful tool, and words are a powerful tool. Those who have been abused find it difficult to talk into silence, but if there is a conversation happening, telling their stories becomes easier. By writing this blog post, I hope to contribute to the growing conversation about sexual abuse.
I know people from a number of different backgrounds who have experienced abuse. The majority of those I know personally do not come from conservative Christian backgrounds and are not deeply involved in religious communities. From what I have seen, abuse happens in settings that teach submission and those that do not. It is definitely a form of mind control and dominance, but I think that drive for dominance comes from a different place than religious or Biblical teaching, since many of the men I know of who were/are abusers are not part of religious communities at all.
However, when an abuser is part of a Christian community, and especially if he poses as a godly and spiritual man, as the pastor who abused you did, the abuse survivor faces a double whammy. It is very difficult to sort through the confusion and hurt caused by that kind of hypocrisy. That man SAID he represented God, and if you–at least for a time–believed him, why should you want anything to do with that kind of a god? I would call that spiritual abuse as well as sexual. I think abuse that happens in what is supposed to be a godly setting is more damaging than any other.
Thanks again for your thoughts. I didn’t realize, when I started it, that my reply would be so lengthy! Abuse is a huge and complex subject, and there is a lot that I still need to learn.
Such wrongs must make God weep. How He longs to heal and comfort. We could ask why He didn’t prevent sin altogether. But instead He gave us a choice. And He gave us Jesus. So that when it is too late for prevention it is not too late for hope and healing.
Amen! What a beautiful reply.