About the Author
Eliana Gil is the author of Outgrowing the Pain and Outgrowing the Pain Together. She has more than forty years of experience working with families and children in need of therapeutic services, and she has contributed to the study of mental and emotional health in children and families. In addition to her therapy services, she lectures, writes books and articles, and is involved with Gil Institute therapy services. Eliana Gil is also the director of the Starbright Institute, which trains other therapists in fields related to child therapy.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
c h a p t e r o n e —
IS THIS BOOK FOR ME?
Do you think you’re crazy?
Do you think you’re bad?
Do you have trouble finding friends, lovers, acquaintances?
Once you find them, do they dump on you, take advantage of you, or leave?
Are you in a relationship you know is not good for you? Are you getting beaten up? Does your partner drink too much?
Are things okay sometimes, but never for long enough?
Are you always doing for others, but finding no one returns the favor?
Are you distrustful and afraid of others?
Are you suspicious, resentful, angry at others, often explosive? Do you find others are always taking their anger out on you?
No matter how many good things others tell you, do you end up thinking they are lying to you?
Would you rather stay home alone, and lonely, than face people you don’t know, who may not like you?
Are you still trying to figure out what you want to do when you grow up? Do you sometimes feel that you’ll never grow up?
Do you have a terrible relationship with your parents, feeling bad around them all the time? Or do you constantly make efforts to please them, never feeling like you succeed?
Do you let people go on too long doing or saying something that distresses you before stopping them, and later find that you resent them?
Do you think you’re good for nothing?
Are you drinking too much, eating too much, or trying to numb your pain with drugs of any kind?
Do you find yourself being abusive to your kids, or afraid to have kids for fear that you’ll beat them?
Everyone has some of these feelings some of the time. But adults abused as children can have many of these patterns to extreme degrees.
Some people think they were not abused as children because they were never hospitalized, it only happened once, their parents didn’t mean it, or didn’t know better, or other people had it much worse. Abuse of any kind: verbal, physical, sexual, emotional or neglect, affects children. The after-effects can show up immediately or later in life.
Because abuse in one’s past is difficult to admit, many of you may never have made the connection between what happened to you as a child, and some of your current problems. It’s an important connection to make, and it will frequently enable you to get unstuck and move on to accomplish some of the things you want.
Purpose of this Book
This book is not going to solve your problems completely. But it will help you explore the questions, “Was I abused as a child?” “Has the abuse affected my life negatively?” “Am I doomed?” This is an optimistic book. It emphasizes the importance of the past as well as the present and the future. It will help you sort out what was, what is, and what can be.
This book will outline some of the ways you may have been affected by any form of child abuse or neglect. It will also help you to recognize the changes that can be accomplished in breaking patterns and habits which resulted from the impact of abuse.
Abused children learn by their experiences to expect little of themselves and others. They are not usually taught to trust, and end up seeing themselves as bad, crazy, and unworthy of love or attention. Just as abused children learned to see themselves this way, they can learn to adopt more positive ways of viewing themselves and others.
Who Is This Book For?
This book is for any adult who was abused as a child, or witnessed abuse in his/her family, and is trying to make some sense of his/her experience. It is also for professionals who help others (mental health workers, alcoholism counselors, teachers, etc.). As child abuse continues to be recognized as a major concern, more and more adults abused as children need someone to listen to them and help them sort out their experiences and the powerful after-effects.
This book has more questions than answers. I ask the reader to explore slowly the issues of abuse in the past. Seek help from friends, relatives, or counselors in order to fully understand the abuse, to put it in perspective, and to move on to a healthier way of relating in the world.
c h a p t e r t w o —
COMING TO TERMS
WITH ABUSE AS A CHILD
Denial
Because you have started to read this book, you have taken a step toward exploring the possibility that you were abused, or witnessed abuse, as a child. Most adults abused as children have an initial period when they cannot decide if they fall into the “abused” category. The reason for this is that adults usually have a defense mechanism called denial that protects them from anything that is too painful. Denial helps block out unpleasant, painful memories. Children who are abused build a protective wall of denial which helps to keep them safe from the pain they expect or experience. By the time they are adults, the walls that protect them are very strong and tall.
Not everyone has a wall. Some children use other defenses and can appear fearless as if nothing bothers or touches them. If you were this kind of child, you may find it harder to acknowledge your hurt. I hope you peek at this book anyway.
If you were one of the children who built walls, as you read this book, you may find holes in your wall. You may even find it useful to make an effort to start lowering your wall, one brick at a time. It’s important to lower the wall slowly. If you feel unprotected and unsafe, you might become frightened. The wall has kept you safe from some hard truths all these years.
It’s hard to acknowledge being abused as a child because in doing so, you also admit that your parents were wrong, or not perfect. “Honor thy mother and father” is a very strong lesson, and seeing your parents as abusive may feel like a betrayal of them.
As children and adults, most of us want to believe the best of our parents. They are very important to us. If we have a choice between whether we are bad, or they are bad, we are likely to choose ourselves. We might think something they are doing is wrong, but probably we will make up all kinds of excuses for their behavior.
Most abused children grow up thinking that the abuse occurred because of themselves: I did something wrong, I deserved what I got, I needed to be straightened out.
It is important to realize that everyone’s parents and children have positive and negative aspects. If your parents emphasized only the badness, they did not help you to identify those qualities necessary for building positive self-esteem. It may have been that they had no idea how to raise a child, or were angry and frustrated at other people. For whatever reason, whether you were neglected or abused physically, sexually, or emotionally, it was a problem with your parents, not with you.
