Untold

Peter is unusually quiet at the start his session. He looks down at his hands, then gazes out the window. I resist the temptation to ask him what is going on and remain silent with him. The silence grows more comfortable, the connection between us palpable.

“I know I’m going to tell you today. That doesn’t seem like such a problem. I guess the question is why I’ve never told you before. It’s been almost three years since I started seeing you. I know you’ll ask why I didn’t tell you sooner. I’m asking that myself.” Pause. “The answer isn’t obvious to me. If I hear myself say it never seemed like such a big deal, that seems ridiculous, even to me. If I say it was too hard to talk about, too embarrassing, too uncomfortable, I just don’t think that’s it.”

My discomfort increases as Peter continues speaking, trying to imagine what he might not have revealed. He’s talked about his rigid, explosive father; his removed, distanced mother; his bullying older brothers. I like Peter. Shy, reserved, anxious Peter has done well in his life. He’s a sociology professor at a local university, is married to a warm, accomplished woman, and thinking about having children. He worries about his anxiety, his tendency towards depression and his discomfort with the competition in the academic world.       

“I was molested by my Catholic priest,” he blurts out. “By my confessor. It’s like a joke. I wonder who he was confessing to.”

I’m shocked. Not by the revelation, but just as he’d anticipated, by his not having told me long before.

“I’m so sorry, Peter,” I say, “So sorry that you had to endure that experience.”

“And wonder why I didn’t tell you before.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Obviously the case in Pennsylvania brought it all back up. Not that I’d forgotten about it. Just brought it back to the forefront.”

“Leaving you feeling how?”

“Sad. Depressed. Disgusted. Angry. You name it. The feelings all victims describe.”

“And how do you feel telling me now?”

“I don’t know. Kind of numb I guess. It’s not like I thought about it every time I was in session. Occasionally it would go through my mind and I’d say, no, this isn’t a good time.”

“And when you thought it wasn’t a good time, why did you think you thought that?”

He shrugs. “Other things seemed more pressing? I really don’t know.”

Suddenly a thought comes to me. “Have you ever told anyone?”

“I told my wife. Before we got married. I thought she should know…”

“Can you finish that sentence?”

“See, this is exactly the problem. Once I tell, it all becomes about my having been abused by my priest.”

“What all becomes about your having been abused by your priest?” I ask, confused.

“Everything. My shyness. My depression. My anxiety. It’s not! It’s not only him. He didn’t cause everything,” he says angrily.

“Of course not,” I reply. “Being sexually abused – however significant - was one of the events that affected your life, along with many other things.”

Peter stares at me. “Do you really mean that?”

“Yes, of course.” I pause. “I just had a thought. That priest had so much power over you as a child, perhaps it’s that you don’t want to give him the power to have made you the adult you are, you don’t want him to control your adult self.”  

Tears run down Peter’s cheeks. “That’s right. That’s exactly right. I could never put it into words, but that’s what it is. The bastard manipulated me as a child. I didn’t want him to matter anymore,” he says burying his face in his hands, sobbing.

“I don’t think you’re going to like what I say next, but the problem is, that by not speaking about him, you have unconsciously given him the power to continue to silence you, to continue to hide as if you’ve done something wrong  - which you haven’t.”

“No! That can’t be! Oh my God, you’re right. I’ve let the bastard continue to control me!”

“Well, you’re now unsilenced. You’ve spoken. You told me. We have a lot of work to do around this Peter – and I don’t mean that he’s the only factor influencing your life – but he has been a significant force and it’s time for you to speak.”

“I’m so sorry, so sorry I never told you.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. As I always say, you can only do what you can do and you’ve now spoken.”

#MeToo

“I’m trying to decide whether I should join the hashtag MeToo movement and tell my story. All these courageous women are coming forward. Why shouldn’t I? I mean, I don’t have the same story. There was no famous actor or congressman, but still, I have a story.”

You most definitely have I story, I think to myself, remembering when Amber first started working with me many years ago, an almost mute thirty-five year old who held herself rigidly together, staring blankly into space. It took her over a year to tell me her story of sexual abuse by both her father and brother.

“And, after all, my brother is a pretty hot-shot business executive,” she continues.

“Is it that you’re concerned your story isn’t …” I hesitate. “…news worthy enough?” I ask, puzzled.

She pauses. “Maybe.” She pauses again. “You think that’s kind of crazy, don’t you?”

“I don’t know about crazy, Amber, but it confuses me. It’s definitely up to you whether or not you tell your story. I’d just want us to consider the consequences of your telling or not telling.  But what’s your fantasy here, that you expose your abusers and no one really cares? Is your wish that it be front page news?”

“I hadn’t thought of that but it’s a good question.” She sits in silence. “I’ve never told anyone except for that feeble attempt to tell my mother who obviously didn’t want to hear it so I immediately backed off. And you, of course. But even that took me a long time. I have considered confronting my brother.  Not my father,” she continues. “That would be way too scary. But I haven’t even said anything to my brother. What am I scared of? Having them deny it? I guess. Not having anything to do with me? That would be no great loss. But now I’m thinking of telling the world that my father and brother took turns raping me while the other one watched. It’s disgusting. I can’t even say it without feeling nauseous. How could I imagine telling the world?”

Although I have some thoughts about what might be underlying Amber’s conflict, I stay silent, waiting to see what she’ll come up with herself.  

“I would love to expose them to the world. I want the world to know how these seemingly normal upper-middle class men – boy in my brother’s case – can be brutal rapists. I was only 11 for God’s sake. And it went on and on until I finally got up the nerve to say ‘no’. And what would people say? That I could have said ‘no’ sooner? That I could have told my mother? Or somebody. I’ve certainly told myself those things often enough.”

“You say that it feels scary to confront your father, but it sounds like you find it less scary to imagine exposing him to the world.”

“I suppose I do. It feels more anonymous, like he can’t get to me. Standing in the same room with him and confronting him, I don’t know what he’d do. Scream his head off at me, for sure. Smack me across the face? Very likely. Kill me? I don’t know. Maybe.”

Feeling my anxiety rise, I say, “Amber, I don’t know whether your fear that your father might kill you is your fear as a child or your adult fear, but if the adult you is truly afraid that your father might kill you, I can’t imagine that your exposing him publically would decrease that risk.”

Amber’s eyes widen. “Now you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, but when I said I thought we should consider the consequences of your speaking out, I wasn’t thinking about your placing yourself in physical harm.”

“But how do I know whether my fear is coming from my child self or my adult self?”

“I don’t know. We definitely need to talk about it more. And I should ask you if you’ve ever known your father to physically taken revenge on anyone.”

“I know I told you that he beat up my first boyfriend. I guess he didn’t want the competition. And that he sometimes beat up gay guys in bars. I know he has guns, but I’ve never known him to use them. Used to say it was for our protection. That’s a joke.”   

“Let’s step back a minute. Let’s for a moment ignore the possibility of your father retaliating and look at what you’d feel about publically telling your story.”

“Scared.” Pause. “Victorious. Like I finally got them back.” Pause. “But then I wonder what everyone else would think of me. Especially my fiancé. I haven’t even had the nerve to tell him. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m garbage. Or that he’d treat my brother and father differently.” Pause. “When I hear myself say that I think I must be crazy. Why wouldn’t he treat them differently? And why do I care? You know, I think maybe I should work on telling the important people in my life before I decide if I’m going to come out publically.”

I smile. “Sounds like an excellent idea.”

Secrets

Tall, thin, with neatly coifed grey hair, Estelle Harrison, fidgets in the chair, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “I’ve never done this before. I’m almost 80 years old. I can’t believe I’m coming to a psychologist. But I have to talk to someone. My husband has lung cancer and he won’t let me tell anyone. Another secret. I’ve been the keeper of secrets my entire life.”

“Why is your husband’s cancer a secret?” I ask, thinking how unimaginable it would have been for me to keep my late husband’s cancer secret, how more impossible it all would have been without the support of friends and family. 

“He feels ashamed of being sick, like it’s a weakness.”

“So you’ve told no one?”

“Our daughters know. They call. But they have their own lives. And truthfully,” she says sighing, “I’m not sure how much they’d care anyway. Dave wasn’t a very good father. In fact, he was a terrible father. He used to beat them. That was another secret I kept. He’d take down their pants and beat them with a belt.”

For a reason I cannot completely explain, I think, “Did he get off on it?” What I ask is, “How old were they?”

“I can’t remember how old they were when he started. Young. Too young.”

“Until …?” I ask.

“They both left the house pretty early, so I’d say until they were seventeen. Actually after Maureen left – she’s the oldest – Liz got it worse.”   

Finding this difficult to listen to, I say nothing. My mother didn’t protect me from my father’s rages, but he wasn’t beating me and his rage wasn’t fueled by a perverse sexual desire as seems to be true for Dave Harrison.  

As if reading my thoughts, Mrs. Harrison says, “You think I’m terrible don’t you?”

“I don’t think you’re terrible, but I’m not sure why you didn’t try to intervene, to protect your daughters.”

“I was afraid he’d get physical with me too.”

“And did he?”

“He slapped me across the face a couple of time.”

I am again silent.

“You younger generation, you all think I should have left him. But it wasn’t so easy back then. I was a housewife. I had no way to support myself. I wouldn’t have known what to do,” she says starting to cry.

Feeling more compassion, I say, “It sounds like your daughters are angry with you for staying, for not protecting them. That must make it harder for them to be available to you; that must make you feel all the more alone.”

She nods her head, still crying.

“This might seem like a foolish question, but why haven’t you told whomever you want about your husband’s illness, regardless of what he wants?”

She looks at me, startled. “I can’t do that. It’s his illness. If he doesn’t want me to tell, I just can’t.”

I feel myself getting angry at Mrs. Harrison’s passivity. Is that reasonable? Or is my anger at my mother seeping into this therapy session? Or, yet another possibility, am I feeling Mrs. Harrison’s own anger? 

“Are you angry with your husband, Mrs. Harrison?” I ask.

“I can’t be angry at him. He’s sick.”

“You can still feel angry with him. You can feel angry for his mistreating you and your daughters. You can be angry that he won’t allow you to speak, to tell people who could be supportive of you.” Suddenly I wonder, “Does your husband know you came here today?”

“Oh no, I could never tell him that. He’d be furious at me for telling our secrets.”

I again feel annoyed. Now I wonder if I am feeling angry like her husband, angry that she is so passive, angry that she presents as a martyr just waiting to be beaten. Does she carry within her both the beaten child and the angry parent, with the angry parent projected outward so she doesn’t have to feel the rage herself?  Way too complicated for a first session but I do ask, “What about your own childhood, Mrs. Harrison? Were you beaten?”

“Oh no. I was the good one. My brother and sister got my mother’s rage, but I always did what she wanted and I never talked about what went on at home.”

“Just as you did with your husband. But were you angry with your mother?”

“I couldn’t be. I was too afraid I’d give her some sassy answer one day and then I’d get it too.”

“Sounds like you might have lots of angry stored up inside.”

She shrugs. “I guess.”

Unsurprisingly, another passive response.” 

Unspeakable

“I really appreciate your seeing me again. I didn’t know who to turn to. I’m so scared, so, so scared.”

Across from me sits Jennifer, a patient I have not seen for over eight years. We’d worked intensively for a five year period, until Jennifer gave birth and decided that she’d like to try it on her own. I’d questioned her timing. The victim of childhood sexual abuse by an uncle she’d kept secret from everyone but me, I’d wondered what feelings might resurface with the birth of her daughter. But she was insistent and I had to respect her decision.

“I saw Samantha masturbating in the living room a couple of weeks ago. It freaked me out, but I talked to myself, said it didn’t mean anything happened to her, just a kid exploring her body. So I told her those were things we do in private. She seemed to accept that and I let it be. It still bothered me – I even started to have my scary dreams again – but I dropped it with Samantha. Then it happened again and I got more scared.

“So I tried to talk to her about it. I reminded her what I had said before about that kind of stuff being private, but this time I asked her if anyone else had touched her down there. She didn’t say anything, just looked away from me. I panicked. I told her I wouldn’t be mad at her, but she needed to tell me if anyone else was touching her. Then she nodded and I thought I would die. Not again I wanted to scream. This can’t be happening to my daughter too,” Jennifer says, crying, tearing at her hands. I feel my own anxiety rise along with hers. 

She continues. “I asked her if she could tell me who it was and she pointed to the house next door. That confused me because there’s no man next door, just a divorced Mom with kids. She has a daughter, Emma, who’s the same age as Samantha and they play together sometimes. Then I thought maybe the Mom was dating someone, or was it the Mom herself, all these thoughts racing through my head. Then she almost whispered, ‘Howie.’ For a second I didn’t even know who that was and then I realized that was Emma’s brother who’s probably ten. Is that abuse? He’s ten. What were they doing? Was anyone with them? Where was Emma? I asked the last question. Samantha just shrugged. So I stopped. And I called you.”

“I’m glad you called, Jennifer, I know how very difficult this is for you. It would be difficult for any Mom, but it sets off so many old terrors for you.”

Jennifer’s tears cascade down her face. Her agitation decreases. “I knew you’d understand. I talked to my husband, Bill. He said I was over-reacting that they were just kids, doing what all normal kids do. Maybe he’s right. I don’t want to terrify Samantha. I don’t want to give her the message that sex is bad and dirty. I’ve had more than enough of that to deal with myself. Please tell me what I should do.”

Thoughts have been swirling through my mind during Samantha’s panicky recitation. I always believed that her daughter’s sexuality would present problems for Jennifer, but the possibility of sexual abuse raises those issues a hundredfold. On the other hand, Jennifer comes in with a good deal of insight. She knows she has to rein in her fears to avoid terrorizing Samantha, although children easily intuit their parent’s underlying and unspoken feelings. And there are the practical questions. What should Jennifer do? What did actually happen? Although the facts do matter in a case such as this, how one understands those facts will vary greatly depending upon the lens through which they are viewed.   

“There a lot going on here, Jennifer. Are you asking me what you need to do about your feelings, about how to deal with Samantha, about what actually happened?”

Jennifer stares at me. “I don’t know. I can’t even think straight. All of the above, I guess.”

“You’re feeling overwhelmed by your feelings and you can’t think straight. Is it possible for you, for example, to talk with Bill again about your feelings, to talk with the Mom next door, have the two of you talk with the Mom?”

“I can’t,” Jennifer wails.

I remember that forlorn cry. “You still haven’t told anyone but me about your abuse, have you?” I ask.

Jennifer shakes her head sobbing.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you still feel so much shame you can’t speak. Let’s see if you can come in again tomorrow. I don’t want to leave you feeling so distraught.”