Two reflections

Family

Can be a nest of vipers

The greatest joy

An empty glass

The pain you feel when it matters most

Strangers

The best of times

The cruelest cut

A Sunday

Morning

Before the squirrels are out

You leave the house you grew up in

The walls and plaster and wood of it

Walking fast into town

Empty ships, last night’s slips

A faint odor of terpentine

The market stalls are bare awaiting their traders

Sun is hardly met in sky

You don’t know why

You escape the warmth to be in the cold

Where things unsaid ring truer

In the little park off by the church

Horse chestnuts have fallen

Ivy grows lush

Statues keep their secrets

And imported flowers are red among the green

Like Spanish dancers

You remember

The hollow feeling

And the times it wasn’t

The whoop and rush of emotion

Now you are older and still you are that child

The theatre stands unmanned

All the actors washing their sins

Up to their elbows in suds

He has taken his bike along fastest route

You met here before

Maybe you were twelve

The doorways are the same

The ship fronts have changed names

But still he smells of Autumn and old books

Still his large hand covers yours

And you are the child again

Running from the pain

Dazzled by the jewels of the city

Looking in windows

Seeing this time

Two reflections

Skins of fear

Surely this is the year

We put our skins of fear aside

They are already well flayed and comfortable to wear

And step into

Shoes that do not yet fit

But if we hold on

Shaking in place

Tempted to turn and run

Back to the oppressive we know so well

If we learn to be

This new size

These new shoes

Lending us the necessary dexterity

To skip away from excuses

Vanquish the tendency

To think we only have

One tread
One mark on this Earth

And cannot instead

Inherit the wind

We stay in that diminished moment

Growing cold though the sun shines

You have to satisfy yourself

Fill in the edges

Pick your ink

Color the world

You have to lift yourself up

Nobody else can love you as much

From the cradle to the grave

There’s one friend who won’t leave

If you learn to stop hating yourself

Movement

Is an elixir

Be it in your arms

The first time we danced

Or from your house

The last time I looked back

And as we leave pieces of ourselves

Like a photo album of torn skin

We are surely moving forward

Learning again

The lightness

Of being

Starting today

Bring might to the stage

Stop selling yourself

For pieces of flint and stone

Starting today put away childish things

Voices from the past echoing

A clamor of our downs and undoing

You’re not that clown face anymore

Not the one easily convinced you have no worth

By hellbent egotists intent on keeping you low

That you might never know

The sunlight of your parts

When arranged and strong outlast

Their fickle mercurous passions

For the fat headed go home

Take off their emperor’s clothes

Naked they see the transparency of their game

Is to their shame, their confidence relied upon

Keeping you down

Now you know

Let nobody crush your sights

There is magic in your being

They’ve been keeping quiet for fear

If you knew your worth you’d

Not need them

And their neglect of you

It’s not enough to have scraps

You are deserving

And beautiful

Now that you know

It’s impossible to be caged

By the whittling of simmering minds

Who would deny your purpose with their own agenda

Destroy the child, ruin the man

Or so it goes

Until emerging from dark the child knows

He is made of stars

Breathe deeply and have courage

Little one

For your life is equal to anyone’s

And this veil of sorrow is not your inheritance

You

Are meant

For greater purpose

Now is the time

To claim yourself

Press

The woman’s got a switch in her head

And when she wants you dead

She reaches down

Slow cat stretch

Invisible intent

Almost like

Flicking lint

And

Presses

The

Switch

Move

When you broke my heart

It wasn’t you who broke it

I had to give permission

All the days leading up to that fall

And the nightmares moving behind my eyes like greyscale film

In someways I’d always ended at this sharpened point

I did this to myself

It took that finality to break me apart

I held the chisel to ice

A distant memory of two people filled with joy

Was like a sore on my skin unable to heal

But I want to close my torn chest of its gape

Not see the stain of you separating me from the strength that comes from letting go

I know in time you won’t be a memory

Or even a regret

You’ll be the nothing I wish you’d always been

A cool blank space where all potential pain

Dissolves as salt on snow will leave barely trace

I don’t even wish you didn’t exist

I want to stop wishing for anything in your name

You’ve been a rot in my soul too long

It’s time to move on

Anxiety & how to survive surviving

Anxiety as anyone who has experienced it, which most of us have intermittently, can be rough. When it doesn’t go away it becomes a mental illness rather than a mere short-lived symptom and can be debilitating as you attempt to do the things others do.

Wading through mud is how we experience life is one way people with anxiety describe the feeling.

Watching others able to do things without hesitation, then attempting it yourself and finding it akin to holding your breath for a prolonged period of time, or experiencing a heart attack, makes living with anxiety an isolating hardship.

Typically people who experience anxiety keep quiet about it, due to social stigma and the embarrassment of admitting that they are anxious about something that others do not appear to be.

Some people who experience anxiety are able to work through it and ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ and because of their success, it may lead others who are not able to follow at the same speed, to feel like they have failed. But there are many layers and degrees to anxiety and this will always impact a person’s ability and how far their efforts take them.

Picture this; It is possible to be standing still trying with every pore of your being and yet not appear that you are (trying) to anyone else.

Picture this; It is possible to do something without trying and thus, expend no effort whilst someone with anxiety has to work ten times as hard to produce the same outcome.

Working ten times harder to do something is pretty exhausting. It can lead you to feel inferior because you perceive others finding things easy, and you conclude, therefore it’s me there is something wrong with. I am weak.

But anxiety is no joke and living with anxiety is a daily battle for those who do not respond to medication or therapy and/or have found the long-term side-effects of medication unacceptable.

We’ve all heard how anxious people are more prone to certain diseases (heart disease primarily) and struggle with jobs that are high-stress as so many of ours are these days. Anxiety can impact academic performance, test-taking, public-speaking, relationships, communication, authenticity and sleep. Often people can only tell we are anxious when we confess, otherwise they may perceive us to simply be avoidant, aloof, quiet or shy.

Shyness and anxiety can go hand in hand but one does not beget the other. The ‘bad rap’ both get in American society especially, is unfortunate. Just as the world does not need to be completely filled with extroverts, we should not expect shy people to become outgoing nor anxious people to stop existing in favor of daring people. Diversity is a good thing, that includes the types of people we are. Anxiety only ever becomes a problem when it begins to rule you and dictate to you, rather than the other way around, some anxiety is natural and we all experience it. In fact, the only people who experience almost no anxiety are psychopaths and sociopathic, meaning, if you have a conscience you invariably experience some anxiety and that’s a sign of being balanced.

Mental illness is when something becomes too much that it controls behavior in a detrimental way. I see it like the snake and the snake-charmer, the mental illness is the charmer, the result is the hypnotic snake that lulls us into altered behavior. In the case of anxiety this can manifest in our missing out on things we might actually like to do.

The first port of call is to establish, are you overly anxious and is it negatively impacting your life? If you are simply an introvert who loves your own company or smaller groups of people, and would prefer to read than say, go to a party, that is not a mental illness it’s a great choice and you will probably be very successful! If you are not going out because you are paralyzed by social anxiety that’s cutting the pleasure out of your life and something should be done about it.

Fortunately unlike some other mental illnesses, anxiety is relatively treatable. That does not mean everyone with anxiety will benefit from treatment but the success rate of treatment is higher with anxiety than any other mental illness. Nobody knows why this is for sure, but some reasons could include, responding well to medication and better options for therapy. Equally, in the milder forms of anxiety there is less morbidity, meaning some mental illness is very intrenched and hard to treat.

For some however, anxiety does not dissipate and this is true of all treatments there are those who do not respond. It’s not their fault, and it makes it very hard for them because it acts as a double-whammy, firstly they have something they see others may not, secondly they do not respond to treatment, two negatives. If you know someone like that, consider the impact of a flippant remark like “you may be anxious but just relax” and how that could add to feelings of inadequacy and error.

Anxiety is heightened by stress and what constitutes one person’s stress differs from another. Personally, the work place was my stressor. I related it subconsciously and consciously to stress because of bad experiences. Anxiety is often ‘the fear of what could or may happen’ rather than what’s happening right now. You can experience anxiety in the moment, but often it’s more of a preview feeling. In the case of work place anxiety, you can get very anxious on say., a Sunday night, imagining the potential stressors Monday morning.

Unfortunately whilst therapy can help you become aware of your ‘internal scripts’ and dialogue and seek to change how you self-talk by changing the meaning of what you internalize, it’s not a certain cure. I can tell myself, Monday may not be bad, Monday could be good, one bad experience does not equate to all bad experiences. And I may logically believe that, but emotionally it is harder to translate the logic to the emotion. The pathway is often fraught with long-learned anxiety triggers and it’s almost a battle of the wills.

Sometimes you hear that someone has been ‘strong enough’ to over-come their negative self-talk and I say, good on you if you’re one of them. Equally, this can lead to feelings of failure for those who are unable to quit the long learned script in their head that manifests dread. Sometimes it’s not even a palpable ‘fear’ so much as a generalized anxiety and it can manifest in more ways than an internal script. Anxious people often sweat, have trouble sleeping, may seek drink/drugs/bad habits to assuage their anxiety without even being aware of it, may increase their heart rate or worse case scenario have a panic attack.

All these things are symptoms of an anxiety disorder that can if left unchecked, control and dominate the strongest people. Whilst much can be done and should be done to limit anxiety, there is always going to be a difference between a laid-back person and an anxious person. This is as much as anything, personality, life-experience, coping, DNA and possibly even biology. The latter because anxiety can be learned, and can run in families (inherited) through a mixture of biological and social traits. Depending on how much is biological it may be impossible to completely eradicate.

Epigenetics is the study of whether something is biological in origin or ‘learned’ (socialization) with the belief being, it is a mixture of the two, and by understanding the relationship between two, you can better predict and understand, outcome. Studies done on twins show that whilst they have the same DNA their ‘life experiences’ and where they live and with whom, influence their outcomes. This is true about every facet in life, including what we eat (we are what we eat) how many children we have and tons of other little nuances. Epigenetics is complex and we can never know for sure, how many factors make up the differences and similarities in people and studied populations.

Whilst a researcher may need to generalize to create a working theory, within that generalization are many differences that do not get picked up by mass studies, this is true of the layers of anxiety and each person will vary in their response to treatment and cause. What may cause anxiety in one, does not in another, but equally, they may become anxious about something else entirely. Ensuring we are sensitive to those who experience anxiety will obviously decrease their anxiety! Thus, we can be the change we want to see!

Mental Health Month “All queered out”

The relationship between the LGBTQ community and Mental Health has long existed. Someone who believed same-sex relationships to be a sin, may point to the mental health ‘sickness’ of those who are attracted to partners of the same gender. This goes back to the seventies where mental health and being queer or transgender, was considered a mental defect/illness. It was not until the early seventies that the bible for Psychiatrists changed this diagnosis and it no longer was considered a mental illness.

During this time of stigma, those who admitted to being queer or transgender were often subjected to camps and programs that attempted to ‘cure’ them of their ‘proclivity’ of course they were unsuccessful but they did a great job of messing up generations of queers, so much so that many stayed in the closet, marrying and having children and never ever admitting who they really were.

Someone who is anti-gay may argue, that means they have a choice because they choose to stay in the closet and marry, they can be normal after all!

There is however, nothing normal about pretending to be someone you are not, and this definitely can be one reason LGBTQ people suffer from a higher than average degree of mental illness.

If it’s an argument of which came first, the chicken and the egg, then you can cross-compare to other studies looking at marginalized and condemned groups such as racial minorities, and see that levels of mental illness rise when bigotry and condemnation in the larger society are directed toward that group. No surprise, hate begets mental illness. It’s not all in your head!

How can hate cause someone to be mentally ill if mental illness is not a mailable and ‘chosen’ ailment? Hate cannot cause someone to get cancer, so how can we argue mental illness is as serious as cancer?

Hate can lead someone to drink too much, smoke too much, and that can cause cancer. It is called an indirect relationship. Cause and effect. The same is true of hate and the LGBTQ community, if you are condemned, judged, shamed, picked on, hated and treated badly day after day, that can literally drive you out of your mind. More commonly, a pre-existing tendency toward certain mental illnesses is exacerbated and tipped over the edge.

This does not mean, anyone ‘chooses’ to be mentally ill, but like anything in life, extreme stress CAN bring on symptoms. They have long known this with Schizophrenia, Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder and of course, PTSD has its roots in society as does anxiety. You cannot remove societal influence from the development of a mental illness yet it is as ‘real’ as any other disease in terms of true manifestation and side-effects.

Historically gay and minority populations experienced a high degree of stress and fear. They were having to hide who they were, meet in secret, they could be arrested because their emotions were illegal if expressed physically, and they often had other concerns such as low-income, poor access to care in the community, nobody to talk to honestly and unanswered questions about their own identity.

Our society is typically Heterosexist and Heterodominant because the vast majority of people in our society are heterosexual. It is one thing to show two women kissing, and have a bit of bisexual fun, quite another to be a committed full-time lesbian. Most people don’t relate to that, they may try to understand but that’s like a white person understanding the experiences of a black person, you can only go so far with that.

Thus, LGBTQ are misunderstood at best, and not understood at all at worst, with pastiche and parody being the status-quo. Historically this was even more so, as it was an illegal ‘act’ to be with someone of the same gender sexually (and everyone considered the deviancy of gay sex to be the key to being homosexual rather than thinking for a moment it could be about something other than sex).

Unfortunately a large portion of gay men were so promiscuous it did not help the ’cause’ because they really did live the life style that heterosexuals feared. I do condemn this in the sense that I see no good coming out of sleeping with twenty strangers a night, and whilst that may seem homophobic of me to say, having read the history of HIV and AIDS I see a causal history there as to why homosexual men became one of the earliest groups to be significantly infected by HIV/AIDS. This set the gay cause way back because straight people condemned all gays outright for the actions of the few, and believed HIV/AIDS to be a gay-plague, which of course it was not.

Reading the history of this time, I tried to better understand what would lead gay men to be that promiscuous, my first thought was, a lot of straight men would do the same thing given half the chance! My second thought was, it’s about reaction. Gays were subjected to such strict secrecy and condemnation they could not really be ‘out’ and when finally some cities were tolerant enough to be relatively out, certain populations ran with it. I understand the reaction/action/reaction cycle it exists in every subjugated population to some extent, and every new generation reacts to their parents, it’s a cycle of over-throwing the old for the new. But the level of promiscuity in cities like NYC and San Fransisco was a contributing factor as to why HIV/AIDS initially hit the homosexual male population so hard.

When we consider what a heterosexual who knows little about homosexuality must have thought upon hearing that some homosexual men with HIV/AIDS were sleeping with twenty plus partners a night, as well as doing drugs, it’s not hard to see why there was another wave of backlash against the gay community en mass.

That said, times have somewhat changed and whilst you can still find ‘bath houses’ and gay men (and some lesbians!) who wish to be as promiscuous as those early days, there is also a greater appreciation for actual relationships among the homosexual population. This should be emphasized more in our culture, as heterosexuals still believe homosexuality is about sex, and it is often a very small part of what goes into being a homosexual. The stereotypes are hurtful to the community as a whole, those include the idea that all lesbians are ugly, all queer men are paedophiles, all lesbians are men haters, all bisexuals are sex-addicts, all gay men are perverts.

Going back to mental health … when HIV/AIDS first hit, there were not enough resources to help the gay community, and there was therefore, even less help mentally. After the crisis began to die down and some treatments that worked began to help people live longer and HIV/AIDS was no longer a literal death-sentence a strange thing occurred…. there was a mass influx of extreme depression among the survivors of the ‘gay plague’ as it was known.

Survivor guilt and the depression that comes from severe illness and PTSD (seeing all your friends die) are HUGE factors in the development of mental illness. Some survivors actually deliberately stopped taking their HIV/AIDS medication and let themselves sicken and die because of not being able to stand surviving. They felt they didn’t deserve it. Why me and not my friends?

This was exacerbated by virtually NO resources for gay individuals who needed to talk about what they experienced, witnessed and felt. This still stands, in most cities throughout the US there are no specific mental health services for the homosexual and bisexual and transgender populations.

During my studies as a psychotherapist I sat in a large room with over a 1000 counselors on a briefing about ‘homosexuality and mental health’ during which everyone was told that to be homophobic or intolerant of homosexuality, was incompatible with being a mental health professional. Sounds good huh? Not so good. Of the 1000 there I would easily hazard a guess and say that a third, possibly half, were somewhat prejudiced, very ignorant and possibly homophobic. I say this after hearing them speak, the questions they asked, the people they were.

This is not condemning someone who is homophobic, any more than I would someone who is racist. It is your right. But it’s not legal and it’s not moral. So given this, those people have the difficulty of being legally required NOT to be what they actually privately are. Do you think many of them would admit this? Do you think they would stand up and say ‘I am against homosexual relationships’ and possibly lose their license? For those who are homophobic or anti-gay, you may be shaking your heads and saying ‘this is why it should not be legalized, you are forcing people to feel what they do not’ and I agree with the latter statement.

If you are homophobic you probably shouldn’t be a therapist with the exception of working in a religious community for like-minded people.

If that sounds extreme, well it is. Just as I would say if you are racist you should not work in a public setting but you would be fine in say, a community that supported your views and this cuts both ways (white and black).

LIkewise, if you are sexist, don’t work with the opposite gender.

I’ve been told that when you are a ‘ist’ you should work through your feelings and you should take clients who push your buttons. I don’t agree. Therapy is a fragile experience, and people pick up on intolerance. When I was training I saw and heard enough people to see, they KNOW when you are not comfortable with them. The same goes for ignorance, there is no place for ignorance and therapy when it comes to treatment. If you don’t understand it, refer, refer, refer. To someone who does.

The problem is funding, there are no funds for the queer community because it’s seen like Planned Parenthood as a problem more than anything else.

So if gays don’t have access to good mental health services (and other services) is it any wonder they have higher percentages of certain diseases and mental health issues?

The bottom line is; LGBTQ populations exhibit higher levels of anxiety, depression and alcohol/drug abuse than the standard population. This is not because they are all sex-addicted club fiends who pour drugs down their throats whilst sleeping with twenty partners a night. But the reality of this does lead ignorant people to label mental health as a weakness and point to this as an example. Some even go back to the idea that mental health is a perversion of nature, just as the pilgrims did when they put mentally ill people to death or locked them up.

It doesn’t take long to learn about a group of people you have nothing in common with and it can go a long way. Typically Native Americans ask that therapists working on reservations be of Native American heritage. Some say it should not matter who the helper is, it is more about their willingness to help.

I disagree. It does matter. Just as if you are black and you have been subject to racism you may wish to see another person of color, there’s nothing wrong with that, just as there is nothing wrong with being female and wanting a female gynecologist or therapist.

More gay people need to educate the majority about the specific issues relating to their population so those heterosexual therapists can actually be of some help to queer populations. Even more than that, those therapists who are anti-gay or prejudiced should recuse themselves. Yes – step away – don’t see homosexual patients – do them a favor!

Currently the accepted protocol is to be objective and even if ‘you are personally anti-gay’ you can be objectively helpful to a gay client. That’s ridiculous, no you cannot. I have a friend who is fairly anti-gay and works as a therapist and he is not ever going to be helpful to a gay client and can do more damage than good. Period. I have told him this but until the system changes, his boss and other leaders will insist that anyone, irrespective of their personal beliefs, treat gay clients.

Let’s change this…. and some other things and maybe the rates of mental illness will begin to decline in the LGBTQ population and with it, the high rates of suicide.

 

Mental Health Month “I can deal with it / why can’t you?”

Want to hear a horrible truth? Some of the worst judges of the mentally ill are former mentally ill (or current!) people!

How can that be? Think of ex-smokers and it will become apparent.

There is something in the human psyche in some people, where if ‘WE’ have conquered something, we become intolerant of those who do not.

Why? Maybe it’s a defense mechanism, maybe it’s a feeling that if you’re able to, others are weak for not being able to, maybe it’s just the euphoria of knowing you have, or perhaps it’s denial, you think you have, you say you have, you condemn those who have not, because you’re trying to believe it yourself.

Whatever the reason (and it is important, but it’s very complex) the outcome is if you are mentally ill and another mentally ill person or someone who ‘was’ tells you that you need to get over it, that hurts twice as bad, because you know they know! Or you think well they must do, right?

Wrong.

Just like women will sometimes tell you they cannot recall the extent of the pain they experienced in child-birth because we have hormones that specifically block some of those memories so that women will not be put off having children again, this can be the case for the ‘formerly’ mentally ill. They forget how they felt, they forget how bad it was, they are over it now, they have moved on!

Except, if they have moved on, then why are they so keen to judge?

The truth is, it is too close to home, and a part of them knows they could feel it again, maybe even already does, and so, they lash out because .. they’re frightened.

And that’s why most people do bad things, out of fear.

The man who is in the closet for being gay may tell others it’s wrong to be gay.

The person who is abusing children may be one of the loudest condemnor of sexual predators.

Humans can be hypocrites, never more so than when fear or fear of judgement is involved. We will deny our very selves and turn on those who have the most in common with us, just to save ourselves.

There are of course, other reasons, but fear is a big motivator. Denial is another. And fear and denial can, as we all know, be a great breeding ground for extremist thinking.

Think of those who join extremist cults and their stories and this will be painfully apparent.

So one of the worst things to happen to mentally ill people is … other mentally ill people.

Sad but true. When you think the one person who will ‘get it’ doesn’t, that can really leave you floundering. You may be able to ignore someone who doesn’t get it, but if someone who ‘should’ get it, still doesn’t, that can leave you thinking it really is my fault, it really is something wrong with me.

A bad recipe.

So if you have ever experienced a mental illness and you feel better now – good on you – but spare a thought and better still spare some mercy and empathy for someone who isn’t there yet and may never be.

After all, there are degrees of mental illness, and how bad it gets. There are biological reasons. There are physical reasons. There are emotional and literal reasons. No two people are the same. Some of us by our very DNA are more likely to be addicts, others are more likely to be suicidal. Studies show time and time again, we are not simply bound by the same rules, but our biological legacies. It is literally true that if you have not walked in that person’s shoes you cannot know what they are going through.

If you feel you are stronger than others because you once had a mental illness and now you do not, if you believe you ‘cured’ yourself by sheer will power and effort, and you are ready to condemn and criticise others and tell them that they need to get with the program, consider the above, and hold your tongue. It is one thing to support and encourage, it is quite another to make someone feel that if they just tried as hard as you have, they will not have whatever is wrong with them any longer.

Sadly for many with mental illness it is a recurring, cyclical or intermittent disease that will return. For others it goes away and never comes back. Much of this has to do with the type of mental illness and why it occurred. For example if someone has PTSD from witnessing a brutal attack, the prognosis for them long-term is good, if they did not have a pre-existing condition.

But for someone else with life-long anxiety or depression, being told they should be able to get over it, by someone else who has, but for differing reasons, is counter productive and damaging. It can act as a disincentive, just like the focus on being happy all of the time in our society, can be a thorn in the side of those, who are attempting to just cope with getting out of bed.

We come at things from a myriad of differing directions, lest we forget this, consider long and hard before ever judging, every single time and maybe you’ll find, there is never a good reason (to judge).

Mental Health Month “Dying in secret”

Body Dysmorphia / Anorexia / Bulimia / Dieting / Shame / Overweight / Underweight / Orthorexic

For many, dealing with ‘real world problems’ an eating disorder or unhealthy relationship with food or self-image, is going to seem vain, unnecessary, small-minded and petty. If you’re one of those people, reading this won’t be interesting.

For the rest of us who at some point or another have experienced one or more of the above and/or been close to someone who has, this has a real world relevance and to dismiss it as a ‘rich white girls disease’ is to ignore the many people who die indirectly or directly or get sicker, every year. What good is shaming someone if you perceive their ‘problem’ not to be worthy enough for inclusion?

Let’s assume for a moment, any eating disorder or body-image issue, IS taken seriously and isn’t derided, insulted, demeaned and made fun of. Let’s assume people feel they CAN talk about it without pretending they have no idea what it is, because of fear of being judged and told; ‘Get a REAL problem rather than a made-up one!’ Tell that to the kids who die in hospital EVERY DAY from issues related to body-image.

It’s easy isn’t it? To condemn someone and say they’re petty and vain for having any type of body image disorder. Do you imagine they chose that life? That they want to be held hostage by a strange madness that seizes their otherwise rational faculties and enslaves them?

I’m not going to say vanity cannot play a part, but the vast majority of kids and adults who experience this of both genders because it affects men and trans also, feel this way because of a build up of reasons not just self-consciousness about the way they physically look. We can prove this though we should not have to, by showing the relationship between parents with eating disorders and their off-spring and the increase in likelihood their off-spring will go on to develop some kind of eating disorder. Likewise this is true even when that off-spring is adopted away from their family. In other words, it’s not just socially learned – some of it is inherited/biological.

The most recent body-issue out there is Orthorexia, and it’s trending because it has formed around a phobic over-response to the ideals of health and the fears of ‘bad’ food that dominate our society. Orthorexics will literally fear eating certain types of food because of everything written about them. For example if we took the various guidance of health gurus we would not eat; Any gluten, any fried food, any sugar, any non-organic produce, any alcohol, any dairy. We’d be left with rice-crackers, seaweed, vegetables and apple puree. Yum.

It may seem absurd, or an over-reaction but if you take health seriously it is easy to develop without intending to, a phobia of eating most foods because of this. You feel everything you eat is bad for you, so why eat it? You only want to eat things that are good for you and if you cannot then you skip eating. You may not be able to afford to eat what you want to eat and that presents problems as well as finding it hard to socialize because of your restricted diet.

More people than ever before have ‘restricted’ diets. Maybe they are gluten-intolerant, allergic to dairy, celiac, have a peanut allergy, are on a diet, have diabetes etc. Many menus calorie count, some break down the fats and ingredients. It is easy to obsess more than ever, and social media fuels this. There are sites devoted to this and other extremes as well as an increase in hard-core fitness programs that exclude many foods.

When someone has a tendency toward obsessing over this, maybe due to a pre-existing condition like body-dysmorphia, it’s not hard to become Orthorexic and fear eating a lot of food. The hard part is because it’s based upon health, it’s hard to find a healthy way of quitting being Orthorexic. How can you tell someone, eat less healthy food sometimes! The jury is still out on the ‘cure’ for this, but usually it comes to a crisis point and the sufferer realizes they are being controlled and they either embrace that and continue or let it go a bit and become less fanatical about how and what they eat. But it is not easy.

Anorexia is the fear of eating and the equating of food with weight-gain and negative feelings/experiences. Anorexics may eat but they often avoid it and limit their intake. Some purge afterward. They usually lose weight sufficiently that people will begin to notice. At first they are praised for being so ‘beach body ready’ and later on when they begin to grow hair on their skin as an extreme response to starvation they are made fun of. Anorexics have the highest risk of dying due to the lower rates of a ‘cure’ and they are often hospitalized.

Bulimia is characterized by bingeing and purging or even simply throwing up after eating. Typically a bulimic has many of the attributes of an anorexic and may starve themselves also or be an anorexic who purges. Other times they may purge but not necessarily lose sufficient weight to be seen to be anorexic although health-wise they are at great risk because of the strain throwing up does to our heart. Combined with inadequate nutrition and the strain of throwing up typical side-effects include broken veins in the face and hands, digestive disease and scarring, tooth decay and stomach problems.

Many people with eating disorders are on a ‘spectrum’ that doesn’t fit the absolute diagnosis of one specific disease, they are considered to have an eating disorder and then it is characterized individually.

Over eaters / binge eaters – an eating disorder characterized by over-eating to cope with stress much like anorexia that is heightened by anxiety and stress. Over-eating can include periods of extreme denial and starvation, it can also include purging. Over-eating can cause fluctuations of weight that put pressure on vital organs, and also can be a very isolating disease with a higher risk for suicide for all types of eating disorders. Sufferers may also gain extreme amounts of weight and suffer the judgement and ridicule that many over-weight or large people suffer because of our societies obsession with lower weights and their stigmatization of ‘fat’

Working out – Sometimes people who work out to lose weight or become fit can become obsessed with it. Whilst not always connected to an eating disorder, this can relate closely to body dysmorphia and shares the ‘control’ factor crucial in all eating and body disorders because it is thought, they all seek to control their surroundings because they do not feel they are in control in other ways.

Body dysmorphia is not an eating disorder but it can lead to, cause or exacerbate an eating disorder. Body dysmorphia is the incorrect transmission of an image of oneself. You can see a photograph, a mirror reflection, a film, of your body and you will not see your body the way others do.

How is that possible?

I have no idea. It seems absolutely impossible. I would NEVER believe it IF I had not A. Experienced it directly and personally B. Known so many others who did C. Professionally worked with many who did. Just like those who are not raped cannot always understand how life-changing rape can be, we seem to struggle to empathize and understand unless we have directly experienced it, which is sad.

To some extent it seems like a delusional disorder, or type of madness. I mean if you think you look a certain way but do not, how can you see yourself physically that way? And yet you do.

People suffering from any of the above, often have other conditions such as anxiety, low self-esteem, they may be survivors of sexual abuse, they may have been raped, they may be being bullied. Depression Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar are other co-morbid conditions that often occur simultaneously. The secretive life of someone with this can be so secretive nobody ever knows they suffered.

Any type of eating disorder is pretty hard to ‘cure’ it was once thought Anorexia could never be cured it could be lived with. Nowadays anorexics and others, have access to treatment if they have the money for the often expensive treatment centers or if they are insured. Treatment can include hypnosis, group therapy, aversion and its opposite ‘exposure’ therapy, cognitive-behavioral and many other methods. Nobody knows the exact ‘cure’ rate but many go on to live healthy lives.

Then again like any addiction or disease, it is possible to switch one for the other. When someone who was say, formerly bulimic is ‘cured’ they may simply take their need for control and place it elsewhere. They may become obsessive-compulsive, they may generate more anxiety, they may take up smoking. It is important to look closely at this because some of the alternatives are as if not more dangerous.

Please note, this is the first time I have ever talked about my own experience in relation to eating disorders or body dysmorphia and my teeth are clenched because it’s like standing naked in public and goes against a history of being expert at hiding these things when they existed.

In my own case, I met a girl I thought was so beautiful around 14 years of age, she was bulimic and anorexic. I recall clearly that I wanted to be like her so I copied her, stupid, immature, but that’s what I did. At first it didn’t mean anything I was just copying her, until my grandmother said one day that I was thick around the waist and would never look good in 1950’s dresses (I was 14) and in the same week my dad told me I was ‘chunky’. Sometimes words have no effect, other times they do. When you are already insecure, and have had a rotten time, sometimes they have too much of an effect and it doesn’t go away.

My friend and I had a secret group where we would binge, purge, starve. Eventually we stuck with starving because we felt badly for wasting food. At 16 a gym teacher said I needed to drop a few pounds, a dance teacher said the same thing and so I entered the world of starving for the sport, which many can relate to. At 17 I began swimming four times a week and during this time of a year, I didn’t starve myself, I was simply too hungry to! It felt great, I was free of the demon.

Except that’s never what happens. The reason we know such things are mental disorders is because they are inherited (children of anorexics have a higher risk) they exist irrespective of culture or income (yes, Hispanics and Blacks have eating disorders too, they were just ignored by the main-stream who believed it to be an Anglo middle-class disease, likewise with boys and men) and it’s usually deeply hidden and never talked about and is a form of delusion-disorder, you SEE things that are NOT there. IE: You are skinny and you see fat.

I can remember being in a dance class and watching all the tan girls in their leotards with their long legs and necks, so graceful and then looking down and seeing my inner thighs all flabby and squishy. It wasn’t true, they weren’t, but that is what I SAW. I remember being at a dinner party and suddenly running to the bathroom and throwing up everything I ate, and covering it expertly with a breath mint, nobody knew and it seemed like a super-power, in fact it was a sickness, an invisible and terribly destructive sickness invading my every thought.

At 18 after my boyfriend had left me, the old demon returned (a need to control) and I began to throw up whenever I ate until I was a dangerous weight. Few people knew, including my parents because I was excellent at hiding things related to my eating disorder. I went to college and in that first year it was the worst it was ever. I realized I was going out of my mind and it controlled me completely, I sought help. I went to a therapist about it and how it related to being abused as a child and other things that had happened in my life. This helped.

The main ‘cure’ of my eating disorder though was not what the magazines would like me to say. It wasn’t that I saw the light, I got better, I’m a shining example. Oh no.

I was ‘cured’ because I was in a relationship and I had nowhere to purge, or throw up after eating and I couldn’t not eat because I lived with four people and they would have noticed. there was only one bathroom, the house was small the walls paper-thin. After a while I realized I just couldn’t hide my disorder and as I was also sharing my bed and happy in my relationship I stopped.

That seems a pretty pathetic reason huh? I thought so.

It also wasn’t true, it was another layer of the delusion.That’s like an alcoholic not drinking in public, doesn’t mean they are not an alcoholic. People say, if it’s a disease you cannot control it, but who said that? Of course you can! You think you can anyway, but really it controls you. When I was alone, even for one night, I would stuff things in my mouth until I nearly burst and then throw up, or I would eat absolutely nothing or I would stare at myself and see something hideous. I didn’t and couldn’t talk about it because we all know what others would say. You are vain. You are shallow. You are pathetic. You cause this. You waste food. You deserve what you get. But it wasn’t vanity it was self-hatred and self-loathing, a desire to be that eight year old again, free of everything. I didn’t know why, I didn’t connect it to sexual abuse and other things that so often are the triggers and markers for at-risk youth to develop eating disorders.

But years later when I was single again I began to starve off and on. I saw that the ONLY thing keeping me from having a full-blown eating disorder again was circumstance! I wasn’t cured at all! I was simply living with the secrecy like a double-agent, patting myself on the back for my success when really it was underneath the surface controlling me. For someone who was so open and honest I was a huge liar, nobody knew, and the more they didn’t know, the more I couldn’t say.

HOW can we have so much control that if we live with someone else it may help and if we are alone we immediately fall back to it? How serious and real can it be then? I think it’s very serious and very real, imagine looking in the mirror and seeing someone who isn’t there! I still do. I cannot see the ‘real’ me in the mirror but what I try to do is surround myself with people who eat healthily but normally, and ensure that I don’t let ‘the voices’ lure me back into bad habits.

I have slipped a few times, notably in times of high stress. I realize for some it is impossible to live with the disease relatively well, for some they are so sick they really do benefit from more intensive treatment and/or hospitalization. I was never as sick as some of the girls (and one boy) whom I knew with eating disorders but that doesn’t mean I was well either. After a very serious bad experience I fell back into starving myself the denial felt redemptive, in my twenties I felt I was far too old to be doing this, and yet I was (many anorexics are over forty, everyone assumes they are 18, the age-bias means many do not ever get treatment). That year I went to visit school friends back in Europe, they all told me how unhealthy I looked, how I had no chest, no flesh, and I felt like I lived with a chimera inside of me, dictating this awful tendency to reduce everything to controlling how much I ate.

In our society if we perceive a disease to be ‘chosen’ or ‘self-selected’ and the person had a choice, then we blame the person who has that disease. We say “I’m not going to understand this disease or empathize because I blame you for causing it, therefore it’s not like a disease you didn’t cause.” What we fail to understand is, while we judge, we judge a far wider number of people who witness that judgement and thus, never seek help, we also instill a sense in the disease-sufferer that their disease is a choice, a bad habit, and their fault. In other words we compound the problem all because we condemn people for something we don’t understand. How many times have you heard someone say; “Those damn anorexic models I have no sympathy for them” We believe that kind of illness is essentially a weakness of character or worse, enviable and thus, we resent them. Would we say that if someone disclosed they had ovarian cancer?

I use my own example because I have NEVER publically talked about having an eating disorder before. I would say it’s a lot like being an alcoholic, you are ALWAYS an alcoholic just like you are always someone with a potential for eating disorders. I did go down the road of Orthorexia and left to my own devices would be merrily heading down it now (except it’s not merry, it’s ridiculous and it’s crazy) and equally I still have body dysmorphia. I can only believe that by admitting this as I have here, I encourage others to get treatment. I personally found therapy very helpful and the other thing that helped was ensuring I took the right vitamins and minerals to balance myself and become less unhinged which I was exacerbating by poor nutrition. It is a vicious circle.

It is very hard for me to recount this, I have tried to delete this several times, feeling that if it gets ‘out there’ I will lose control and I realize, that’s what I have to do and what we all have to do if we experience these feelings. For a long time I could not hang out with people with eating disorders, they triggered me. I am such an independent person ask anyone but when it comes to eating I’m not at all I’m a complete follower and that baffles me. I still struggle to eat when I’m alone or at dinner parties, there are things I will always have and need to always remind myself I have, to face them and not deny them, because then they win.

The grand irony is, I have always been genetically thin, so even if I never had this, I would have been picked on for being underweight, and that’s the farce of it, you can look any way and nobody really knows what’s going on for you, they accuse you of being anorexic when you’re not, and commend you for having a good figure when you’re starving yourself, the mixed-messages of our society increase our propensity to be sick. For some they are genetically wired to not respond to those triggers, whilst others are genetically engineered to respond to them, recent studies show there is a definitive link between DNA and the development of any type of eating disorder. Therefore it’s not all in your head and it is all in your head. But for years we were told it was the spoilt princess syndrome, would that make anyone want to admit it?

It is a form of madness I am certain of it, and as such it belongs in the mental health category almost more than anything else. Society does not help, the continual bombardment of thin bodies really doesn’t help. I have been told I was thin my entire life, and I realize, thin doesn’t even MATTER it’s not IMPORTANT and I don’t even find really thin women attractive! Sometimes it’s not about wanting to be thin, in my case it never was, it was about seeking control and having a really bad relationship with food that was very love-hate. Personally I think bigger women are far more beautiful, proof that an eating disorder or body dysmorphia is not always about weight or thinness, although for some it is.

I had a fear of letting go of being a child, of growing up, of intimacy, of body-shame due to sexual abuse, of self-hate due to low-self-esteem. Those were my triggers, those were my things that led me to develop eating and body disorders. For others it may be the same or different. The thing we all share is a need to control what we feel we do not control – a feeling of being out of control. Sometimes people cut themselves, sometimes people do drugs, sometimes people control what they eat. Equally, if you do not see yourself accurately in the mirror this can be a manifestation of self-hate that was inculcated or indoctrinated and it can lead to a skewed self-image which is at the root of body dysmorphia.

I feel an intense embarrassment and shame at admitting this about myself. I know when I press ‘publish’ I will immediately regret this. And that’s why I’m doing it, because it’s time. Time to end the shame. If you read this and think I’m another white-middle-class-whiner who invents a disease, good day to you, but for those of you who ‘get’ what I’m saying here, I say to you, let’s talk about it, let’s get the monster out of the closet and get to the bottom of it, because the one thing that we hate most of all is admitting it and coming clean, that’s what we avoid at any cost, and that’s exactly why we must.

I’m sorry this is all about me, it was the only way I could find to truthfully tell the story.

 

Mental Health Month”Grow up & forget about it!”

Do you know anyone who was sexually abused as a child? Were you? Was your daughter? Sister? Wife? Neighbor? Brother? Son?

Childhood sexual abuse and adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (ASCSA) are in every society in every corner of our planet. It is often assumed children are resilient and can put up with a lot, and this is true, but childhood sexual abuse can destroy and does destroy so many parts of a child’s psyche we can honestly never know with any certainty how much was taken by the act of abuse.

What we do know is abuse, any kind of abuse, including sexual abuse, is going to have after effects that last long after the actual abuse ends. One of the ways this occurs is an unconscious attempt on the part of the child grown to adulthood (or near enough) in acting out the abuse in an attempt to understand it.

Does that seem crazy?

Very often organizations working with adult survivors noticed a pattern of repeat sexual and physical and mental abuse among populations who had endured these things. At first they believed a person who say, was raped was more likely to be raped a second time and this is borne out by statistics. But in addition to this increase likelihood of further victimization there was another pattern emerging; the unconscious re-enactment of aspects of the abuse by the survivor.

What that means in plain terms is, sometimes survivors will create situations similar to the abuse and actually reenact elements of the abuse, and go through those scenarios and possibly be re-victimized as a result. They will do this without being consciously aware of doing it.

Why would you ever want to do that?

It is thought this unconscious behavior is much like an unconscious wish to understand and reclaim what happened. Without intervention the individual is not aware they are doing it, and thus, when it happens is genuinely surprised (and re-traumatized) whereas when they are made aware this is a process of the mind trying to make sense of something that is hard if not impossible to make sense of, they can break the cycle.

Like many survivors who may turn to prostitution because of feelings of worthlessness and devalued degradation and shame, some will go in the opposite direction and have absolutely no sexual desire. These extremes are one form of ‘reacting’ to something the mind and spirit are trying to reconcile. Another way is the reenactment of the experience on some level. It has even been postulated that BDSM is one outlet for survivors to ‘act out’ their feelings and possibly reclaim their lost power.

Whether true or not, for others who have not had this experience, it may appear the individual is seeking to be abused on some level. It may even be an accusation thrown at the individual. Statements like; “You must want this / you keep putting yourself in these situations and letting it happen!” The individual will perceive this as being another condemning, blaming, shaming comment.

Abuse is hard to understand. I cannot understand why someone would sexually abuse a child, a woman, a man, an animal. I don’t think I could ever understand. So in absence of understanding, we sometimes go to great lengths to try to make sense of what happened to us.

I knew a woman who would drink a lot and go home with men and wait to see if they raped her. She was not aware she was doing this, until she really stopped the compulsion and thought about it. Then she realized she was seeing if she would be ‘betrayed’ again by a man who she had trusted and who had raped her when they had been drinking together. She had tried to talk to her friend who had raped her afterward about why he would have done this, he refused to say, and so she unconsciously put herself in similar situations to see if it would happen again and maybe understand it better. Of course when she realized what was happening she realized she did not want to be raped again! But until she came to that point she was unawares this was even happening.

Legally if she had been raped whilst drinking even if she consented to go home with someone, it would be rape if she did not give consent for sex and some would argue, if you are drunk you cannot give consent so with the exception of committed relationships where many times, partners will have sex when inebriated, the rule of thumb is, if you are not in a relationship and you or your partner are inebriated do not have sex with them because you cannot guarantee consent (unless it’s very obvious). Of course this is a difficult thing to gauge and it’s unrealistic to expect nobody to drink, so that’s where the legal system can get unstuck in issues of consent. However in most cases it is obvious for example if you are passed out drunk and someone has sex with you, that’s rape and you did not give consent, if you changed your mind and didn’t want to sleep with someone you withdraw your consent.

Therapy can be useful in working through trauma that involves enacting out parts of the abuse. Childhood survivors of sexual abuse go through triggering phases in their lives where it becomes challenging to deal with the history of their experiences. Typically these occur at puberty, during your first serious relationship, in pregnancy, during your child’s puberty and other occasions. It can be hard talking to family members about this, especially if the abuser was a family member. In a healthy marriage, talking about past sexual abuse histories helps you communicate what is and is not acceptable and what boundaries need to be respected, as well as bringing you closer.

Survivors of adult sexual abuse can have large issues with rage – anger – helplessness and anxiety.

Rage – anger at the perpetrator, at those who didn’t do enough to stop it, at oneself for being a victim, at people who trigger a reminder in any way.

Helplessness – feelings of impotence, uselessness, weakness, a feeling that nothing you do no matter how hard you try will change things or count.

Anxiety – fear, phobias, self-hate, secret-keeping, terror, flashbacks, nervousness, triggers, and general anxiety around anything related to or reminding of, the abuse.

Those as well as other symptoms can lead to severe mental health challenges, not least, depression and difficulty with trust and emotions. Unlike some who if raped may hopefully get some degree of immediate support, many times adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, may never report what happened, may be disbelieved, may suppress it and keep quiet about it. Others may feel it was dismissed, forgotten about, considered unimportant and feel that people think they should ‘get over it’ by now. Those who are raped as adults and receive no support will probably also experience this isolation. That feeling can lead to mental illness if left to fester and remain unresolved. Rape Crisis Centers will see ANY child or adult of either gender who was raped or sexually abused in any way at any age at any time in their life. They have therapists who are trained in the legal ramifications, and also how to actually help those who have experienced this.

A fellow blogger reminded me to be mindful of male-rape and male sexual abuse and assault and how even if it does not happen with the same frequency it may suffer greater stigma because males are less likely to report any kind of sexual abuse, for similar reasons, but also because they are not as typical a victim and thus, they fear the condemnation of others who may think ‘you’re male, why were YOU raped? How could you have let that happen?’ As with women, and children, nobody LETS rape happen, they are victimized by a rapist and they survive that rape.

Men and boys of all ages can be raped by other men and boys. Men and boys can be raped by women, although this is the rarest form of rape and sexual abuse/assault it does and can happen. Typically the most common form of sexual abuse perpetrated by a woman toward a man is between a female relative (older) to a male relative (younger) when the power balance and physical strength is on the female’s side. The male relative may be told ‘that’s a fantasy come true’ when he tells his story of being raped by an older woman, but of course, for many young men this is no sexual fantasy, this is rape.

A man or boy can obtain an erection even against their will, because our bodies respond whether we emotionally wish them to or not, this is also true of women. A man or boy may be able to be touched to erection and then raped, and orgasm, and thus he may feel he was not raped even if he emotionally feels he was. A woman or girl can also experience this. The fear of ‘I came so I must have liked it’ is one big reason why males in particular do not talk about their sexual abuse. Another reason is, if a boy is raped by another boy, he feels people will think he is gay and whether he is or not, this can be a palpable fear in many social settings that perceive being gay negatively in some way.

For a boy who is not gay, being raped by a male, to the point of ejaculation is horrifying and leads them to have many internalized fears of ‘I must be gay / I must be twisted / I liked being raped’ instead of seeing that climaxing is no indicator of pleasure, it is a physical response to stimulation. Likewise, if raped by a member of the same-sex, the rape can be physically damaging, and emotionally scaring because that male may never have considered that they too could be raped. For girls and women we’ve always known it was a possibility, it doesn’t make it easier BY ANY MEANS but it’s a socially known phenomena, less for male-on-male-rape and yet, it has been used for years on the battlefield with both sexes.

Rape isn’t about sex it’s about domination, control, sadism, anger, violence.

Sometimes sexual pleasure is another reason that is gained by the rapist who inflicts pain, control, domination, fear, anger, violence. In other words, they get off on it. That’s the definition of a sadist and probably a sociopath (someone who has no empathy or regard for others). Equally narcissists can be deluded into thinking anything they do to anyone must be good because it feels good to them.

Those kinds of people capable of rape are our norm. But what about the good person who rapes? Is that possible?

Many times a best friend rapes their friend. In such incidences, everything you thought you knew flies out of the window. How could my best friend do this to me? What did I do to deserve this? You didn’t do anything. Sometimes people, even good people, do terrible things. We should not excuse a good person who does a terrible thing, because they committed an act that will stay with us forever. Oftentimes though, these are the very rapes that go unreported and can occur before adulthood.

Of course who wants to report rape when the system is broken? Ideally everyone should, that is the only way rapists are stopped. But even if you don’t, seeking therapy to work through the messed up feelings you will have afterward, as well as checking yourself physically and ensuring you are protected as much as possible from disease and injury is essential. This can and should include, an examination, evidence collected for should you proceed with a case (and you may not know if you want to at the time so get it taken so you have that choice) documentation of damage (for future reference in relation to your long-term health, blood tests for contracted sexual diseases and treatment if applicable including but not limited to, prophylactic treatment.

prophylactic treatment can include certain antibiotics that work to counter certain STD’s that are commonly transmitted. Others include The Morning After Pill which is not an abortion pill but a pill that prevents conception much like the regular pill but is taken once during the first 72 hours after a man has ejaculated inside you, to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

The least well-known prophylactic treatment is a HIV prophelactic. If you believe your rapist may have had HIV this is one measure to prevent contraction. You are given a large quantity of medication similar to the HIV treatment for up to six weeks typically a month, they have side-effects but they are reliable in preventing HIV transmission. Many people do not know about this and if it is applicable, it should be requested.

What about adults of childhood sexual assault? They are often raped in childhood, it is often a secret, as adults they may have scars and side-effects from this abuse including STD’s which further the shame and humiliation they feel. Seeing a good doctor who can go through your history and check on you regularly as well as prescribing appropriate medications can help though often the damage can be lasting and far-reaching which is why children abused in secret is so devastating as many are never treated until it’s too late.

With therapy it is never too late. I have seen people in their eighties who until that moment had never spoken about being abused as a child and at the termination of therapy they were glad they spoke out. It is never too late. Never.

But if you don’t get therapy for someone you love, it might lead to things you couldn’t imagine like them becoming the predator and abusing another child, as I saw many times happen, not because they were evil but because it’s a taught, learned maladaptive behavior that can be acted-out to the extent that the line between ‘abused’ and ‘abuser’ is blurred and finally, lost.

If you are friends with someone who has gone through something like this, be a friend to them and talk with them about it, don’t side-step around it, let them know you care and want to talk about it and encourage them to talk to a professional also.

Childhood sexual abuse survivors can be among the strongest most resilient souls you could ever meet, they are often the most inspirational and giving and helping. Nobody has to be destroyed by childhood sexual abuse, it is very rare that they are, but those who are, need the voice of us all, to prevent as much as we can, this quiet abuse that can be occurring right next door to us. We should all know the signs and symptoms of an abused child and not be afraid to check on a child we fear might be at risk of abuse.

That said, temper enthusiasm for helping with caution. Being brought up by a single father, many assumed I was at risk for being sexually abused by my father. He never did and never would, but I could see why they may have found it unusual for a small female child to be reared by their father. I was appreciative of their caution when I look back, but glad it didn’t cause further enquiry as that can be as damaging as doing nothing. It may be a fine balance but together, we can lower the number of children who are invisibly being abused in our society right now.