Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

The whole idea of plac­ing in­cest in the realm of this di­a­logue on men­tal ill­ness is be­cause re­search clear­ly points to its high preva­lence rate and the dev­as­ta­tion it leaves in its tail­wind. I thought to get us at least think­ing/re­think­ing, and maybe talk­ing, but I've had mixed re­ac­tions.

I met an up­stand­ing cou­ple in Port-of-Spain last week­end and had an en­cour­ag­ing con­ver­sa­tion with the wife. She of­fered com­men­da­tions and an ex­pres­sion which went like this: "I read your columns on in­cest. Keep up the good work. I guess it has to be said and I am glad you chose to say it. Some­one should."

And I'm smil­ing­ly think­ing, "I wish it wasn't me," while thank­ing her for the sup­port.As I con­clude the is­sues of in­cest for now, I wish to do so with the un­der­stand­ing that while all the is­sues of crim­i­nal­i­ty and vi­o­la­tions are nec­es­sary to the dis­course, it's the heal­ing of the bro­ken lives that I find most im­por­tant.

Every in­di­vid­ual is unique and in that unique­ness is an ar­ray of re­spons­es to the trau­ma of in­cest. Among those re­spons­es is re­cov­ery. And I say that not to give false hope to those who may have long-term strug­gles or to those who may be ir­repara­bly af­fect­ed, but be­cause I know peo­ple who are con­sid­ered re­cov­ered.

I have one friend who has had psy­chother­a­py and who leads a "nor­mal" life, and an­oth­er with whom I have an even clos­er re­la­tion­ship who had both psy­chother­a­py and a faith-based in­ter­ven­tion and who now shares a "for­giv­en" re­la­tion­ship with the rel­a­tive who fa­thered her child when she was a mere child.

For some sur­vivors, the strug­gle may be more chal­leng­ing and may con­sti­tute "de­pres­sion, low self-es­teem, self-blame, dis­sat­is­fac­tion with life, anx­i­ety, dis­so­ci­a­tion, dif­fi­cul­ties in re­la­tion­ships, a ten­den­cy to be ei­ther dom­i­neer­ing or sub­mis­sive, an in­abil­i­ty to trust one­self and oth­ers, prob­lems defin­ing healthy sex­u­al­i­ty, self-de­struc­tive be­hav­iours in­clud­ing sui­ci­dal ideation, dif­fi­cul­ty deal­ing with anger, stress-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es, ad­dic­tions, eat­ing dis­or­ders, and act­ing out sex­u­al­ly.

Be­yond the anger, de­pres­sion and oth­er trau­mas, for sur­vivors who pur­sue heal­ing, quite of­ten it be­gins with the over­whelm­ing pain and con­fu­sion where the "the per­ils of si­lence" col­lide with the risk of speak­ing out, says www.wom­an­sweb.ca.

The fol­low­ing are ex­cerpts from the ad­vice giv­en to sur­vivors of in­cest on the Web­site Woman's Web.

�2 Clar­i­ty of feel­ings and emo­tions

For adult sur­vivors of child sex­u­al abuse, a key com­po­nent to heal­ing is to ex­press and share their feel­ings. This can be achieved by sur­vivors learn­ing to ac­knowl­edge and iden­ti­fy a wide va­ri­ety of feel­ings and emo­tions, as well as find­ing ways to re­lease them with­out hurt­ing them­selves or oth­ers. A good sup­port team is rec­om­mend­ed.

�2 Re­group­ing

This phase in­volves pos­i­tive changes in sur­vivors' at­ti­tudes and feel­ings, where they de­vel­op a new sense of trust in oth­ers but, most im­por­tant­ly, start to trust them­selves. It in­cludes learn­ing from the past, ex­am­in­ing the present, and plan­ning for the fu­ture. Many sur­vivors have sug­gest­ed that this stage rep­re­sents a tran­si­tion from mere­ly ex­ist­ing to ac­tive­ly liv­ing.

�2 Mov­ing on

This stage in­cludes a shift in fo­cus from the neg­a­tive ex­pe­ri­ences of the past to pos­i­tive plans for the fu­ture. Painful feel­ings and emo­tions do not dom­i­nate mem­o­ries from the past. Pos­i­tive cop­ing skills... as­sist sur­vivors in mov­ing on with their lives. Sev­er­al cop­ing skills that can help sur­vivors to move on in­clude learn­ing to love and ac­cept them­selves, recog­nis­ing and cel­e­brat­ing per­son­al growth, cre­at­ing a healthy sup­port team, griev­ing cur­rent loss­es as they oc­cur, learn­ing to deal with stress ef­fec­tive­ly, and recog­nis­ing when it's time to let go of painful feel­ings con­nect­ed to the past.

Fi­nal­ly, it's im­por­tant to un­der­stand that chil­dren and ado­les­cents who are vic­tims of in­cest and who may or may not have had in­ter­ven­tions may be­gin to par­tic­i­pate in self-de­struc­tive be­hav­iours.

Some of these are "cut­ting them­selves; run­ning away from home; hos­tile or ag­gres­sive be­hav­iours; promis­cu­ity; sex­u­al play with them­selves, dolls, an­i­mals or oth­er chil­dren; copy­ing adult sex­u­al be­hav­iour; dis­play­ing sex­u­al knowl­edge be­yond what is nor­mal for their age; uri­nary in­fec­tions; un­ex­plained pain, swelling, bleed­ing or ir­ri­ta­tion of the mouth, gen­i­tal or anal area, and sui­cide at­tempts" (www.heartand­soulther­a­py).

"Abuse mem­o­ries can show up in dreams, med­i­ta­tive states, night­mares, and day­dreams, and can be re­flect­ed in pho­bias, fears, re­pul­sions, com­pul­sions, pan­ic at­tacks, sex­u­al­ly com­pul­sive be­hav­iours, and aber­rant sex­u­al prac­tices," among oth­er is­sues.

Up­per­most in my mind is that in­cest sur­vivors must get the help to un­der­stand and ac­cept that the abuse is not their fault. It did not hap­pen be­cause of some­thing you did. In­cest is abuse of pow­er where an adult charged with pro­tect­ing a child, vi­o­lates the child/trust. It is the adult who is at fault–cul­pa­ble, crim­i­nal.