Misguided and potentially damaging statements of support

[GinaSmith]

Those who know me will know that I'm fairly comfortable with my sexuality and don't usually need to vent. Still, I'd like to break the mould and do so here. This post may trigger anyone who has suffered sexual abuse (or physical or emotional abuse for that matter). If you are such a person, I would politely ask that you don't read further. This is my rant, so it's about making me feel better, not anyone else. If you think there's a chance it'll make you feel worse, then don't read it. If, despite this ample warning, you read on and subsequently feel triggered or offended, then you've only got yourself to blame.

Right. To business. I don't normally go over to browse or even peruse the abuse section of the forum, but I thought I would have a look. As someone attracted to young(ish) girls, I thought it would be valuable to take a look at the kinds of things people have been through. (Not that my resolve never to abuse needs reinforcing - it's perfectly solid. Still, it can only help, was my reasoning.) I have today and yesterday read some disturbing stuff written by people who have been through hell.

That's not going to be the subject of the current rant. Some people have really suffered. That's fully understood and I wish we could take their pain away somehow. However, and without wishing to detract from the experiences of those who have genuinely suffered, I want to rant about some of the other ones. I noticed a fair few that fit broadly into a couple of categories:

1) 'I haven't got any memories of being abused but I might have been because [insert spurious reasons]'; and

2) 'I wasn't abused but my dad used to [hold my hand when we walked down the road until the age of 10/allow me to sleep between him and my mum until the age of 10/kiss me on the cheek]'.

Now, with regard to the former, I fully understand that horrific abuse can lead to repression of memories or even splitting of the personality. If that's the case (i.e. serious psychological problems with a psychiatrist's opinion being that these are born of repressed trauma), then I should stress point 1 doesn't apply. It's where the reasons inserted are indeed spurious that it gets my goat. I'll explain why below.

With regard to the type 2, I understand a much-contested term exists in therapeutic circles: 'covert incest'. This is where nothing actually happened, but the attraction might have been there, and in the view of some psychologists this is just as bad as real abuse. In the view of any serious psychologist, however, and as far as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is concerned, covert incest is a load of balls.

Why do these both get my goat? Assuming we geniunely are talking of spurious reasons for suspecting abuse, my goat is gotten because:

1) it's insulting to those who have genuinely suffered abuse and who continue to go through hell;

2) it's insulting to the masses of people who may be swayed to believe that they too might have been victims of abuse or covert incest in spite of no recollection of anything even vaguely suggestive of such things (James Kincaid, prominent academic and author on child abuse, points to the insidious tendency - in the USA in particular - to assume that if there is memory of abuse, then it happened, and if there is no memory of abuse, then it still happened but the memory has been repressed); and

3) it contributes heavily to the culture of mass hysteria that leads to good, law-abiding, non-abusing paedophiles finding themselves living in a world in which child abuse is apparently omnipresent, memories or otherwise, and 'all paedophiles must die' are the words perpetually on the lips of the roused rabble.

Another thing that got my goat today was the pandering to these spurious stories: 'oh, yes, the fact that your dad used to hold your hand means you probably were abused, seek some therapy'; 'that's terrible that you suffer low-grade anxiety as an adult [incredibly common], and the fact that you say your father was once kissed by a priest means he may well have abused you and you have repressed the memory and now it's manifesting as anxiety... seek some therapy'. Well-meaning as these statements may be, in the spurious cases they struck me as being self-serving mantras, as if by extending the field of those affected by abuse to those that (frankly) probably went through nothing of the kind, the abuse question becomes more prominent, thereby providing added comfort to the person who would like to believe that they are far from alone with the issue. Now that's quite a harsh statement from me - so remember, I'm talking about the spurious cases only, and the more naïve responses to them, AND I'm ranting (this is my rant, so please don't begrudge me the occasional wild plaint).

This all must be very lucrative for the therapy industry. It's also very damaging to familial ties (a perfectly innocent father-daughter relationship may now be tainted by these well-meaning but possibly entirely misguided statements of support), society as a whole and the psychological well-being of the individuals concerned.

In the above, I exaggerate to make a point. The quotes are not real quotes. It is a rant meant to make me feel better. If anyone has a problem with it, let me know. I'm open to deleting it all if it's going too far. But sometimes I need to vent too you know!