Communication

Listening, Hearing, Understanding, & Healing

Shutdown of Communication

One of the biggest fallouts from sexual abuse is the shutdown of communication. We’re either told directly to keep our mouths shut or it’s implied through off-handed comments, body language, etc., to never let it out. When I was 7 after being raped the first time, I learned very clearly and very strongly to keep things to myself. As the sexual abuse progressed and the bullying started, I buried my communication into shame and internalized, “What’s wrong with me?” “What have I done wrong?” “I hope nobody catches me.” - as if I was the one who committed the offenses.

Shame and Guilt Constrict Communication

I know that the things about myself that I kept most from my family were shameful and left me guilt-ridden, especially when I finally got caught: wetting my bed, sucking my thumb, not doing my homework, cutting school, getting bad grades, being bullied, and being sexually abused. That’s a lot of shame.

And as I grew older, I continued to keep things from my parents, especially my fears about money, my love life, my career, my success, and my relationships. I was carrying everyone’s else’s guilt and shame myself with very little knowledge of how to actually carry it. And never knowing that it wasn’t mine in the first place. But I did know how keep it to myself.

If I had been able to communicate about the rape, the CSA, and the bullying, and it was received with love and care, it’s very likely that all of the behaviors would have reversed or never happened. But because communication from verbal perspective was never an option, my very young brain had no other choice but to the only things it knew. In fairness to my brain, I was communicating through my behaviors, but nobody was aware to pick up on them. And so I developed perceptions about myself as being true. I was lazy, dumb, undependable, etc., and mostly: People are scary and they have the ultimate decision and control over my life.

Creating Open Channels of Communication

I don’t recall ever thinking, “Hey, I need to tell someone about this.” Fact is, people don’t talk about sex. It’s either taboo or “none of your business” and so sexual abuse falls into the same “Keep it to yourself” response.

But so does just about everything we experience that is uncomfortable for ourselves and others. If we struggle to understand something that clearly everyone else in the class is understanding, we internalize, “What’s wrong with me.” A teacher may feel incompetent for not being able to convey the material in a way that the student can learn and so they communicate, “What’s wrong with YOU” for not understanding.

It doesn’t need to be something horrible like sexual abuse or bullying for the brain to label bad things about ourselves.

It Starts at Home

By starting the communication early with my kids (find that blog here), I was striving to create relationships with them that allowed for any communication to come through. When I was pregnant, I felt determined to create an open channel of communication with my kids. I didn’t know it then but I was building the communication in all of the unconscious channels:

-> the visual (what we see in someone’s body language is our strongest communication channel)

-> the auditory (feeling free to express whatever they need to - good or bad, light or heavy)

-> the kinesthetic (feelings go hand in hand with body language - it’s our own body communicating with us).

I communicated with my kids from the moment they were born about their bodies, especially from the perspective of personal boundaries and safety. It was a natural thing to talk about because I made it a natural topic for them. I think because I was communicating about the taboo subject of body, intimacy, etc., that opened up the communication about anything. And it worked, While family dinners were mostly pretty generic, subjects of bullying, friends being mean, struggles in school, and fears came up. We embraced everything with care, listening with empathy and that allowed us as a family to continue being receptive to anything they want to talk about. Conversations started in privacy about things bothering them. They spoke, I listened. To everything.

We need to be open to listen to EVERYTHING, not just what we want to hear.

And that’s the key - you have to be open to hearing EVERYTHING, otherwise your children, and other people in your life, are going to learn very quickly to either keep it from you or suppress it within themselves completely.

When we are unable to listen, it’s coming from within. Our unconscious mind can’t go down that path for reasons it’s learned along the way. Your experiences teach your brain what it can and cannot do. But, that’s not permanently ingrained if you don’t want it to be. If you’re willing to learn what your mind is doing and why it’s doing it, you’re in the best position to teach it something new.

In my journey of Getting Past Survivor, I was able to have many very in-depth conversations with my mom when she was in her 80s. (I missed the opportunity to talk with my dad before he passed, but I think he truly knew my heart from a letter he had written.) Over several conversations, my mom and I cried, and laughed, and consoled each other, each sharing our perspective on what had transpired over the 55 years of my life to that point. My communication with her was heart-wrenching but also so amazingly healing for both of us.

I never wanted to have to go through that late life communication with my own kids. I never wanted them to ever feel that what they needed to share wasn’t relevant or accepted. My kids are in their 20s and they’ve all shared very personal things with me… and with each other. Not only did I develop a bond between me and them, I created a bond between them and their siblings.

To me, that’s the greatest gift I could ever give them. The love of each other.

And it all started with communication.