As I thought about the word, RECOVERY, and what that truly meant for a child of abuse, I had to first look up its meaning.
Recovery, "Return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength..."
Perhaps the burden to return to normal is what is truly felt by each child who has a parent expecting it to be so.
When I look at the overall picture of abuse, I see the abuser not being asked to recover his normality, yet he is granted it. In fact, most will not even put him into the category of being NOT normal. And the child instead has to work to make Him (the abuser) normal in her mind.
Oddly, my father didn't have to recover anything, for he never lost his original position as father.
I however, felt the strain and stress of their annoyance and disappointment, that I could not recover my original state of mind. I wasn't able to return him to father, and it wasn't HIS problem, but mine. I am still in 'recovery'...is how they see it.
I am not normal. I haven't returned back into the family. I refuse to fall into line.
Child abuse is a crime that doesn't just affect the child. The wound ripples into the family, for it is usually someone they know and of that 50% a family member.
The abuse shows the abscess in the family unit. But, what usually happens, all look upon the child as the abscess, and not the abuser...and not the family as a whole.
The legacy of this disease is that the family structure isn't seen as the problem and NOT the child.
Expecting the child to only recover its normal state of mind, is to be in a huge state of denial. The child, in my opinion is the one with the least amount to recover. They are the ones saying what is wrong. Usually, they speak up and then...nothing happens.
No family implosion...there is perhaps a bit of wobbling, but the family unit doesn't fall down. It stays standing. They will Bless the 'sins' of the abuser....and return to work as usual.
And the child is expected to return to a normal state of mind...and slip back into the family with an abscess of abuse still alive, well and even in the home.
In my case, I had to make the abscess normal and Me not normal.
Recovering my normal state of mind was only gotten, by me leaving behind the family.
If a family doesn't implode, the child has to leave...in order to recover.
If a family imploded, it would show that they believed the abuse happened and it AFFECTED the family. It took a once normal family unit and infected it. Yet, more often than not, the reactions of the family - Not imploding- is what set the child up to be the only one who sees this as wrong.
Yet, in order to fit back into the family unit, you have to make up something in your mind to make it okay. Usually, you are a child without a healthy adult supervision, so you make up the most plausible story...and return to a 'normal' family. Never knowing you have just done what your relatives before you did. Make abuse normal.
If indeed, you stick your ground and refuse to recover the family unit, you will be ostracized. You become the abscess. You are not recovering...and seen as still being 'affected' by abuse. Like, I haven't gotten over it yet.
What they fail to appreciate is that I can't recover my dad or my mom. They have been completely changed when I was abused. By him abusing me and she did nothing. That is my abscess I can't recover from.
Not the actual act of sex.
It is the meaning of mom and dad. I won't recover and return to my original state of mind. I refuse to call them mom and dad. Until I do, I am seen as not recovered.
Looking for a child to return to their normal state of mind, to me means....to get back to the original relationship. And in order to do that the child has to give up their truth and pretend it didn't happen. I still have a dad...and mom.
It is my intent to never recover.
I want to always remain connected to the truth of my past.
When I look upon the way the FALC dealt with abuse, they make you recover quickly by the forgiveness of sins. You are not allowed to remember, but made to forgive and forget. You quickly MUST recover and return to the 'normal' state of mind.
The third party that failed me was the church. Its foundation is created by washing away the image of abuse, to return my father back into a father. They never kept him as a pedophile, but washed his actions away. They recovered his father image...and in doing so made me a liar.
In order to be a good christian, I must return him to father...and her to mother. Remember, "Honor thy mother and thy father..."
I hope I never recover.
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