Winter Turns into Spring - The Blog
The Mental Health Awareness Week' s theme was "Move for your mental health." Social media platforms were drowning in posts and reels from the all main mental health charities and fitness gurus/ influencers, sharing the benefits of physical exercises on our mental health. This theme didn't take into account the many complexities of mental illnesses/ distress.
We, human beings, are the only species on the planet who don't meet our children's emotional needs and don't understand the importance of attachment. Most of the time, parents - especially, mothers- aren't to blame: society teaches us to separate from our babies as soon as they are out of the womb. We are warned not to let our infants getting to attached to us, when, in truth, attachment is vital for their growth and well-being;. Without a secure and loving attachment, to their primary carer, kids will experienced great difficulties as adults and some might not even survive.
#SAAM - the Sexual Assault Awareness campaign is this month. I wish I could write such things as: "If you have experienced sexual assault or rape, please go to the Police, talk to someone, anyone who could help you though this." Sadly, I can't because the reality is the experiences of victims and survivors of SA are still being dismissed, minimised, if not used as opportunities to further hurt those who are seeking help.
Mental health services in the UK have always been hard to access. In the last past 5 years, they can no longer meet the needs of the increasing numbers of suffering individuals. The recuring question is "Why are more and more people diagnosed with depression/ADHD/ BPD? ETC" So, what is happening?
In recent years, researches have finally made the link between trauma and addictions. Indeed, it is time to recognise addictions for what they are: direct effects of trauma, ways to numb the pain experienced by survivors. In this article, I am focusing on the link between Child Sexual Abuse and addictions.
As I mentioned in previous posts, 6 years ago, I attended Co-Dependent Anonymous (CODA) meetings and I logged in on a "Love Addiction" forum. Both were my lifeline for over a year. It wasn't my first time attending a recovery group, back in 2013, I joined one for family members and partners of addicts. I wasn't with my ex anymore but we were still "friends". With hindsight, I now recognised that I was hoping my recovery work would inspire my ex, we could get back together and heal together. When I finally moved on from him, because I had found another "love of my life" I stopped turning up, thinking I had fully recovered as I was in a healthy relationship, or so I thought.
After this relationship and its traumatic ending, a friend invited me to CODA. It is in CODA that I realised recovery is a serious thing and it is for a lifetime. I committed to it wholeheartedly. It was something for me to build a loving and healthy relationship with myself. It also taught me I can't love anybody into recovery. I can't control someone else's behaviour but I must look after myself by removing myself away from any unhealthy behavior in my relationships.
The words "Defects of character" never felt right to me though. Step 6 - Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
So, I changed them to "Outdated survival mechanisms". Mechanisms created in childhood to survive the abuse we were the victims of. Whether we are recovering from gambling, alcoholism, Sex & Love Addictions, or drugs abuse, it is important to recognise them as a results of child sexual abuse. There are not "illnesses" or defect of characters or "bad" behaviour to be rectified.
People are referred to rehab or attend 12 Steps Groups and, they should, of course get all the help they need. The fellowship in 12 Steps groups is an amazing source of support. We learn we don't have to struggle alone. The Steps are powerful tools. However insisting on only focusing on addictions themselves without dwelving into experiences of child sexual abuse is only dealing with half of the problem because it is trying to fix the effects without taking the causes into account.
One In Four
(
Organisation supporting people who have experienced child sexual abuse and trauma), published "Child Sexual Abuse: Numbing the Pain Survivors’ voices of childhood sexual abuse and addiction".
"Addiction services rarely make the link between substance use and the underlying trauma of childhood sexual abuse, yet survivors report mental health issues including anxiety, especially social anxiety, depression, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), depression, eating disorders and self-harm
." and it adds: "Over 25% of our clients
at their initial consultation in 2017 told us they use or have used drugs and alcohol heavily, others reveal excessive substance use during counselling. Like sexual abuse, addictive behaviours can be shameful and hard to talk about and may not be revealed until the counselling relationship is established. Some of our clients participate in the 12-Step fellowship programme including Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) along with many survivors."
Addiction expert Dr Gabor Mate CM,
talks about his research:
"All addictions — alcohol or drugs, sex addiction or internet addiction, gambling or shopping — are attempts to regulate our internal emotional states because we’re not comfortable, and the discomfort originates in childhood. For me, there’s no distinction except in degree between one addiction and another: same brain circuits, same emotional dynamics, same pain and same behaviors of furtiveness, denial and lying."
This, I think, highlights what I've mentioned above: addictions are some of the survival mechanisms we have created as children in order to live despite the abuse.
Let's take Love Addiction. What is love addiction? It is a set of attachment behaviour when someone loses herself/ himself in a romantic interest to the detriment of their physical and mental health.
Dr Vik Watts (MBBS, MRCPsych, BSc) and Mel Davis
from the addiction team at Priory Hospital North London explains what Love and Sex Addiction is (For the purpose of this article I will focus on the Love Addiction part)
Sex and love addiction is not measured or diagnosed in quantity but instead by the negative impact and consequences associated with the behaviour, on yourself and others. It is characterised by obsessive feelings and behaviours which the sufferer feels compelled to repeat regardless of the consequences. These behaviours and thoughts get progressively worse, ultimately resulting in the breakdown of personal relationships. This repetitive pattern with negative consequences can happen both as a result of excessive acting out (sexual bulimia) or the opposite, sexual anorexia.
Love addiction behaviours
Sex and love addiction is not measured or diagnosed in quantity but instead by the negative impact and consequences associated with the behaviour, on yourself and others. It is characterised by obsessive feelings and behaviours which the sufferer feels compelled to repeat regardless of the consequences. These behaviours and thoughts get progressively worse, ultimately resulting in the breakdown of personal relationships. This repetitive pattern with negative consequences can happen both as a result of excessive acting out (sexual bulimia) or the opposite, sexual anorexia.
Love addiction behaviours
- Clinging to an idealised relationship, despite a different reality
- Returning time and again to an abusive and damaging relationship
- Placing responsibility for emotional wellbeing on others
- Craving attention from many different relationships and seeking new sources of attention
On the
Psychcentral website,
it explains:
"People generally become love addicts due to a past history of abandonment from their primary caregivers. Adult love addicts usually recognized as children that their most precious needs for validation, love and connection with one or both parents were not met. This affects their self-esteem dramatically in adult life. It results in a conscious fear of abandonment and an underlying subconscious fear of intimacy..."
Other professionals are raking their brain trying to figure out if this a neurological problem, a behavioral issues or whatever. I believe one thing leads to another: Childhood Trauma/ Child Sexual Abuse = changes the brain- hot place for behaviour = mental illnesse/ addictions. (I will look at the other missing link between Child Sexual Abuse and mental illnesses another day) The focus is mainly on changing the "pathological " aspect of Love Addcition behaviour. Very few actually focus on the childhood sexual trauma most "Love Addicts" have been the victims of.
At my worst, I visited my ex and his new girlfriends' Facebook pages on a daily. I send him letters and find excuses to walk past his place. I couldn't control my impulses. I thougth I wasn't going "mental". as we say, that there was something wrong with me. I hated myself for it. At the end of both of my two last relationships (both were unhealthy) I was so depleted of emotional and mental energy. I wanted to die. I now know, I wasn't "mental" but was experiencing distressing emotional flashbacks. In other words, the abuse I was exeriencing in my adult connections triggered me into an unconscious regression of the frightened, abused and rejected little girl I used to be. My rescuer/ people pleasing/ behaviour wasn't pathological but were all my outdated tools also triggered by adult abuse. I used them to avoid re-living the near death experince of being totally rejected and abandonned by my parents. Yes, a small child who is completely deprived of love and of protection would do anything for mum and dad to love her. She even forgets they hurt her and takes the blame, which makes her re-double her efforts to be seen, to be heard and to be loved; or she will die. She would do anything to survive. As a woman, I was doing the same.
I recently read Shahida Arabi's article
- Abuse Victims Are Not Codependent, They’re Trauma-Bonded, on Huffpost:
"We need to stop stereotyping all abuse victims as codependent and start refocusing on the traumatic bond that forms between abuser and survivor, regardless of the victim’s traits."
"When it comes to living in a perpetual war zone of intermittent kindness and chronic cruelty, there is no ‘enabling’ of the abuse, merely a need to survive in a hostile environment."
"Even if you feel you have codependent traits or were ‘primed’ by childhood abuse, the abuse you’ve experienced in any stage of your life is still not your fault. You are not an “enabler” of the abuser. You are a victim who has been traumatically bonded to an abuser as an effort to survive. "
"We need to stop stereotyping all abuse victims as codependent and start refocusing on the traumatic bond that forms between abuser and survivor, regardless of the victim’s traits."
"When it comes to living in a perpetual war zone of intermittent kindness and chronic cruelty, there is no ‘enabling’ of the abuse, merely a need to survive in a hostile environment."
"Even if you feel you have codependent traits or were ‘primed’ by childhood abuse, the abuse you’ve experienced in any stage of your life is still not your fault. You are not an “enabler” of the abuser. You are a victim who has been traumatically bonded to an abuser as an effort to survive. "
Shahida's words really touched me: yes, I brought my own set of issues within these abusive relationships, but so did my ex partners. My trauma bond was a result of the sexual, physical, mental abuse and the neglect I suffered as a child and was transfered to my adult conection. It is this trauma bond that triggered me back into being this terrified, paralyzed little girl I was. I was told I enabled my ex partners mistreatment by staying in the relationships. This is a form of victim shaming.
It seems that too often, the questions asked are: "What is wrong with you/ your behaviour?", "How did this behaviour hurt those around you?" and "How can you correct them?" instead of "What happened to you?" or "How hurt were you?" and "What help do you need right now?"
In terms of recovery, it is important for survivors of child sexual abuse to be supported in working through their trauma as well as in taking control of any addictions issues that arises later in life, as a way to numb the pain. Unfortunately, cuts in funding (in the UK) means there are fewer resources. And there are some outdated views from a lot of professionals regarding child sexual abuse and addictions. CSA and addictions are very often seen as separate issues where they are most often not.
Sylvie
