TRUE FREEDOM; (What Freedom Means To Me)
To be free is to know who I am, with all that is brokenness within me. It is to appreciate and love the moral principles and values of life that is necessary for the good of all people. To embrace them, and develope them. It is necessary for me to be anchored in a truth; but, to be open with others and so to change. True freedom lies in discovering that the truth is not a set of fixed certitudes, inevitabilities, or concrete self-assurances, but, a mystery I enter into one step at a time. By mystery I mean a manifestation of God's providence. It is a process of me going into an unfathomable reality. In this process of integrating my experience and moral values, and what I learn as I listen to other people, even if there are moments when I experience personal anguish. I need to find links between the old and the new; that will permit the integration of new conscious-expanding truths into what I already know and am struggling to live presently inside my existing certitudes.
As human sciences, and the world develops and my own spirituality evolves, I am called to grow into a new deeper understanding of the true " Source " of the universe and of life.
As I participate in this, my sense of the true expands.
True Freedom for me is to be in awe of this " Source ", of beauty, and diversity of people, and the universe. It is important for me to contemplate the height and breadth of all that is true. True freedom for me is to accept that I belong to a group, a race, a tribe, a family, a community, a religion; and to realize that none of these is perfect, that each has its limits, and weaknesses. Every community of humans has its light and darkness. As a human being, I believe we are part of something greater than ourselves. We flow from a " Source " that is unfathomable, and are all journeying towards it, carrying within us the light of truth and love. I am called to be in communion with the source and heart of the universe. The infinite yearning of my heart is calling me to be in communion with the " Infinite ". I can never be satisfied with the limited and the finite. I must be free to follow the Spirit of God. And this freedom is for love and compassion, to give my life more totally and freely to others. It is the freedom to be kind, thoughtful, considerate, tolerant, generous, forgiving, and patient.
This freedom I seek does not entertain personal honours; it believes all, bears all, and endures all. This freedom I seek does not judge or condemn, but understands and forgives. Freedom for me, is liberation from all those inner fears that makes me hide from people and reality. It is the humble acceptance that I do indeed have fears and inhibitions that restrain me from doing what I rightfully ought to do. This includes asking forgiveness of those whom I have hurt, and forgiving those who have hurt me.
There is a freedom I sense exist, but, that I do not have. I cannot always articulate the ineffable quality of this freedom, but, I do want it. I sense, I still have a long road to walk in order to reach this freedom I seek. I see the goal, but, I am not yet there. I love and want it, but, often-times I am frightened of the disappearance of my walls of defence, sensing that behind them, there is a past anguish and vulnerability that might paralyze me. I see that I still cling to what people think of me, and at times I am excessively-conscious of the way my family and friends love, want and admire me. However; If all that fell away, "Who would I Be" ? But, is that not where true freedom lies ?
The freedom to be rejected, if that is the path or destiny I am to take to live more fully. Is that not the freedom that Jesus spoke about in his charter of the Beatitudes, when He talks of the blessedness of those who are persecuted, or when He says; "Woe unto you when people speak well of you". I suppose in my own way I can relate to Nelson Mandela’s words; I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me...To be truly
free is not merely to cast off ones chains of pain and suffering, but, to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of other people. I have walked the long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter. I have made many missteps along the way.
But, I have discovered the secret, that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are still many other hills to climb in life. I have taken moments in my life, to rest, to steal a surrounding view of the most beautiful meriting aspects and values about people and life. To look back on the distance I have come. But; I realize that I can rest only for a moment, for with true freedom comes responsibilities, and I must endeavour to use all my strength not to be hesitant or foolhardy, for my long road has not yet ended...............................................
My goal in life is to work with the suffering, the poor, the sick, the destitute, the heartbroken. To give something good of myself. To inspire hope and faith in a tactful way with those who have none. This is the setting I believe I would be happiest with the remainder of my life. To give of my time to others without
Thursday, November 20, 2008
HUMILITY
HUMILITY
When I think about the greatest cause of unhappiness it's often related to personal pride and selfishness.
I think that anyone that boastfully esteems himself or herself as important in a self-righteous way is actually showing
the credentials of their own worthlessness. Those who would aspire vainglory in Pride is actually an attempt to create an
impression that we are not what we actually are. How much happier would I be, if instead of self-lauding my pride, reducing it to zero.
I would then find the true infinite "through" the rarest of all virtues...namely ("humility"). Being humble is actually being true to oneself.
If I had the talent to be a good writer and told people I was nothing more than a scribbler,
such a statement would seem as though I was seeking praise. Rather; I would be humbler if I said;
Well; whatever talent I have is a gift of God and I thank Him for it.
The higher a skyscraper, the deeper it's foundation in the ground.
The greater the moral heights that I should aspire to, the greater should be my humility.
When John the Baptist recognized Jesus in the river Jordan he said; "I must decrease; He must increase".
In nature flowers humbly wilt and depart before winter to see only it's mother roots that remain in the soil.
Dead to the world it's roots keep house under the earthen soil in humble humility, unseen by the eyes of people.
But because they humbled themselves, they are exalted and glorified in their beauty in the new springtime growth.
Only when a box or human soul is empty can it be filled. Only when human ego is deflated can God pour His blessings.
Some human souls in life's journey have their hearts filled with so much self-pride that it is impossible
for love of thy neighbour and love of God to enter. If I should remain self-seeking constantly, friends, family, and
acquaintances would disown me.
I think that one of the most beautiful things about being receptive to humility is giving freely of ourselves to others.
Fact is I would have not learned to give of myself if I had not received or taken from somebody else who was generous.
One has to be a taker before one can be a giver from the heart.
So God, before He can be a Giver must find someone who is willing to take something from Him.
But if I am not humble enough to receive from God I am not open to receive anything.
In essence I receive nothing. A man once possessed by the devil was brought to a Father in the desert.
When the saint commanded the devil to leave, the devil asked;
What is the difference between the sheep and the goats whom the Lord will put at His right and His left Hand the day of Judgment ?
The saint answered; I am one of the goats. The devil said; "I leave you because of your humility".
How many in this world have said; ("And I personally am one of them")....I have laboured for years for others and even for God;
and what did I get out of it ? Nothing but great painful suffering. I am still nothing, a nobody.
The reality is though some of us are not fully aware of it, that; we have gained something;
in essence we have gained the truth of our own littleness...and of course great merit in the next life.
If you ask a person ("Are you a saint") if that person answers in the affirmative, you can be sure that he or she is not.
Why ? Because a real saint wouldn't dare boast before God that he or she is a saint.
A true humble person concentrates on their own mistakes and errors in life, not upon those of others.
A true humble person does not carry their own faults on their back, but in front of them.
A true humble person would carry the indiscrepencies of their neighbour hidden and concentrate on what is good and virtuous.
A proud person on the contrary complains against everybody and believes that they have been wronged or else not treated as they deserve.
From a spiritual point of view, If I was proud of my own intelligence, talent, or voice and never gave God thanks for such gifts
I would be nothing less than robber. It would be like taking gifts from God and never giving thanks to the Giver of all Gifts.
In nature the harvest ears of barley which bear the richest of grain always hang the lowest.
A humble person is never discouraged, but a proud person often falls into despair. The humble person has God to call upon.
The proud person has only their ego that has collapsed. How often I fall into despair. How often I forget the most humblest of beautiful
prayers. Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let there be love; where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where their is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in Giving that we receive, it is in pardon, that we are pardoned, it is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life.
When I think about the greatest cause of unhappiness it's often related to personal pride and selfishness.
I think that anyone that boastfully esteems himself or herself as important in a self-righteous way is actually showing
the credentials of their own worthlessness. Those who would aspire vainglory in Pride is actually an attempt to create an
impression that we are not what we actually are. How much happier would I be, if instead of self-lauding my pride, reducing it to zero.
I would then find the true infinite "through" the rarest of all virtues...namely ("humility"). Being humble is actually being true to oneself.
If I had the talent to be a good writer and told people I was nothing more than a scribbler,
such a statement would seem as though I was seeking praise. Rather; I would be humbler if I said;
Well; whatever talent I have is a gift of God and I thank Him for it.
The higher a skyscraper, the deeper it's foundation in the ground.
The greater the moral heights that I should aspire to, the greater should be my humility.
When John the Baptist recognized Jesus in the river Jordan he said; "I must decrease; He must increase".
In nature flowers humbly wilt and depart before winter to see only it's mother roots that remain in the soil.
Dead to the world it's roots keep house under the earthen soil in humble humility, unseen by the eyes of people.
But because they humbled themselves, they are exalted and glorified in their beauty in the new springtime growth.
Only when a box or human soul is empty can it be filled. Only when human ego is deflated can God pour His blessings.
Some human souls in life's journey have their hearts filled with so much self-pride that it is impossible
for love of thy neighbour and love of God to enter. If I should remain self-seeking constantly, friends, family, and
acquaintances would disown me.
I think that one of the most beautiful things about being receptive to humility is giving freely of ourselves to others.
Fact is I would have not learned to give of myself if I had not received or taken from somebody else who was generous.
One has to be a taker before one can be a giver from the heart.
So God, before He can be a Giver must find someone who is willing to take something from Him.
But if I am not humble enough to receive from God I am not open to receive anything.
In essence I receive nothing. A man once possessed by the devil was brought to a Father in the desert.
When the saint commanded the devil to leave, the devil asked;
What is the difference between the sheep and the goats whom the Lord will put at His right and His left Hand the day of Judgment ?
The saint answered; I am one of the goats. The devil said; "I leave you because of your humility".
How many in this world have said; ("And I personally am one of them")....I have laboured for years for others and even for God;
and what did I get out of it ? Nothing but great painful suffering. I am still nothing, a nobody.
The reality is though some of us are not fully aware of it, that; we have gained something;
in essence we have gained the truth of our own littleness...and of course great merit in the next life.
If you ask a person ("Are you a saint") if that person answers in the affirmative, you can be sure that he or she is not.
Why ? Because a real saint wouldn't dare boast before God that he or she is a saint.
A true humble person concentrates on their own mistakes and errors in life, not upon those of others.
A true humble person does not carry their own faults on their back, but in front of them.
A true humble person would carry the indiscrepencies of their neighbour hidden and concentrate on what is good and virtuous.
A proud person on the contrary complains against everybody and believes that they have been wronged or else not treated as they deserve.
From a spiritual point of view, If I was proud of my own intelligence, talent, or voice and never gave God thanks for such gifts
I would be nothing less than robber. It would be like taking gifts from God and never giving thanks to the Giver of all Gifts.
In nature the harvest ears of barley which bear the richest of grain always hang the lowest.
A humble person is never discouraged, but a proud person often falls into despair. The humble person has God to call upon.
The proud person has only their ego that has collapsed. How often I fall into despair. How often I forget the most humblest of beautiful
prayers. Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let there be love; where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where their is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in Giving that we receive, it is in pardon, that we are pardoned, it is in dying to ourselves that we are born to eternal life.
The Heart ("The Human Heart")
THE HEART (THE HUMAN HEART)
Where your treasure is there your heart will be also. Luke 12:34
.................................................................
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of the heart are the issues of life.
.................................................................
The Heart is not only an abyss of Love; it is also an abyss of Mercy.
.................................................................
True sight does not come by the limited vision of human eyes;
True sight is found in the depths of the human heart.
.................................................................
The Heart, the metaphysical heart, the basis of all relationships, is what is deepest in each one of us. It is my heart that bonds itself to another heart; it leads us out of the restricted belonging of our inner self, which creates exclusion, to meet and love others just as they are. A little child is only heart; he/she thrives off relationships, he/she grows through relationships.
When he/she is in communion with someone he/she trusts, he/she is safe, he/she is someone, someone unique and important. He/She is thus empowered, for the rest of his/her life, to be open to others, and able to bring this sense of empowerment into their work. To work means to be energetic, strong, and active, cooperating with others. Communion means to be vulnerable and tender, it means opening one's heart and sharing one's hopes and pain, even all that is failure and brokenness in our lives. If my heart is broken, I can quickly feel crushed and fall into depression, unable to work. Or I may refuse all relationships and throw myself savagely into work.
If my heart is fulfilled, it will shine through my work. We've all seen the transforming power of love. The most hardened embittered person sees themselves and sees life in a new way when they fall in love; and when they know they are loved. It is very easy to recognize a man and/or woman who falls in love. Aggressive or depressive tendencies seem to disappear. They move toward a gentle openness; instead of protecting themselves behind barriers, they make themselves open and welcoming. A new freedom of kindness, and tenderness becomes evident. My point here is that a human being is more than the power or capacity to think and perform daily tasks. In essence there is a gentle person of love hidden in the child within each of us who are adults.
The heart is the place where we meet others, suffer and rejoice with them. It is the place where we can identify and be in solidarity with them. Whenever we love we are not alone. The heart is the place of our own "oneness" with others. The way of the heart implies a choice. We can choose to take this path and treat people as people and not just mindless machines.
(Example)... ("We can see a cook working in a hotel simply as a cook, "Or" we can look at that person with a heart; who has children and a wife or husband and who might be living a difficult painful relationship, and who is in need of understanding and kindness"). To treat each person as a person means that we are concerned for them, that we listen to them, and love them, and want them to become more whole, free, truthful, and responsible.
To speak about the human heart is not to speak of vaguely defined emotions, but to speak of the very core of our being. At the core of our heart, we all know we can be strengthened and rendered more truthful and more alive. Our hearts can become hard as stone or tender as flesh. We have to create situations where our hearts can be fortified and nourished. In this way, we can be more sensitive to others, to their needs, their cries, their inner pain, their tenderness, their needs of love, and their gifts of love.
Our hearts however; are never totally pure. People can cry out to be loved especially if as children that were not loved. There are married relationships that are loving "yet" unhealthy because they are a flight from truth and from responsibility. They are unhealthy because one is too frightened to challenge one's lover. These are signs of the immature heart. An immature heart can lead another person to depression and death. It is only once a heart has become mature in love that it can take the road of insecurity, putting its trust in God.
It is the "Heart" that can make wise decisions and has learned to discern and take risks that bring life. It can meet people inside and outside of the place of belonging. It can meet people who have been rejected or excluded. It is the heart that helps us to discover the common humanity that links us all.
That is even stronger than all that bonds us together as part of a specific group. The heart then, forgoes the need to control others. The free heart frees others. Heart-to-heart relationships where God is present are more important than the approbation of society or of a group.
Belonging to a group is important; it is the "earth" in which we grow. Sometimes however; we have to fore-go group approval and even accept rejection, if it should happen, in order to follow what the ancients called in Latin; "Scienta Cordis", the science of the heart, which gives inner strength to put truth, flowing from experience, over the need for approval.
The science of the heart permits us to be vulnerable with others, not to fear them, but listen to them, to see their beauty and value, to understand them in all theirs fears, needs, and hopes, even if that means tactfully challenging them if need be.
The science of the heart permits us to accept others just as they are, and to believe that they can grow to greater beauty and wisdom. the mature heart does not seek to impose faith.
The mature heart listens for what another's heart is called to be. It no longer judges or condemns. It is a heart of forgiveness. Such a heart is a compassionate heart that sees the presence of God in others. It lets itself be led by others into uncharted land. It is the heart that calls us to grow, to change, to evolve, and become more fully human.
Where your treasure is there your heart will be also. Luke 12:34
.................................................................
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of the heart are the issues of life.
.................................................................
The Heart is not only an abyss of Love; it is also an abyss of Mercy.
.................................................................
True sight does not come by the limited vision of human eyes;
True sight is found in the depths of the human heart.
.................................................................
The Heart, the metaphysical heart, the basis of all relationships, is what is deepest in each one of us. It is my heart that bonds itself to another heart; it leads us out of the restricted belonging of our inner self, which creates exclusion, to meet and love others just as they are. A little child is only heart; he/she thrives off relationships, he/she grows through relationships.
When he/she is in communion with someone he/she trusts, he/she is safe, he/she is someone, someone unique and important. He/She is thus empowered, for the rest of his/her life, to be open to others, and able to bring this sense of empowerment into their work. To work means to be energetic, strong, and active, cooperating with others. Communion means to be vulnerable and tender, it means opening one's heart and sharing one's hopes and pain, even all that is failure and brokenness in our lives. If my heart is broken, I can quickly feel crushed and fall into depression, unable to work. Or I may refuse all relationships and throw myself savagely into work.
If my heart is fulfilled, it will shine through my work. We've all seen the transforming power of love. The most hardened embittered person sees themselves and sees life in a new way when they fall in love; and when they know they are loved. It is very easy to recognize a man and/or woman who falls in love. Aggressive or depressive tendencies seem to disappear. They move toward a gentle openness; instead of protecting themselves behind barriers, they make themselves open and welcoming. A new freedom of kindness, and tenderness becomes evident. My point here is that a human being is more than the power or capacity to think and perform daily tasks. In essence there is a gentle person of love hidden in the child within each of us who are adults.
The heart is the place where we meet others, suffer and rejoice with them. It is the place where we can identify and be in solidarity with them. Whenever we love we are not alone. The heart is the place of our own "oneness" with others. The way of the heart implies a choice. We can choose to take this path and treat people as people and not just mindless machines.
(Example)... ("We can see a cook working in a hotel simply as a cook, "Or" we can look at that person with a heart; who has children and a wife or husband and who might be living a difficult painful relationship, and who is in need of understanding and kindness"). To treat each person as a person means that we are concerned for them, that we listen to them, and love them, and want them to become more whole, free, truthful, and responsible.
To speak about the human heart is not to speak of vaguely defined emotions, but to speak of the very core of our being. At the core of our heart, we all know we can be strengthened and rendered more truthful and more alive. Our hearts can become hard as stone or tender as flesh. We have to create situations where our hearts can be fortified and nourished. In this way, we can be more sensitive to others, to their needs, their cries, their inner pain, their tenderness, their needs of love, and their gifts of love.
Our hearts however; are never totally pure. People can cry out to be loved especially if as children that were not loved. There are married relationships that are loving "yet" unhealthy because they are a flight from truth and from responsibility. They are unhealthy because one is too frightened to challenge one's lover. These are signs of the immature heart. An immature heart can lead another person to depression and death. It is only once a heart has become mature in love that it can take the road of insecurity, putting its trust in God.
It is the "Heart" that can make wise decisions and has learned to discern and take risks that bring life. It can meet people inside and outside of the place of belonging. It can meet people who have been rejected or excluded. It is the heart that helps us to discover the common humanity that links us all.
That is even stronger than all that bonds us together as part of a specific group. The heart then, forgoes the need to control others. The free heart frees others. Heart-to-heart relationships where God is present are more important than the approbation of society or of a group.
Belonging to a group is important; it is the "earth" in which we grow. Sometimes however; we have to fore-go group approval and even accept rejection, if it should happen, in order to follow what the ancients called in Latin; "Scienta Cordis", the science of the heart, which gives inner strength to put truth, flowing from experience, over the need for approval.
The science of the heart permits us to be vulnerable with others, not to fear them, but listen to them, to see their beauty and value, to understand them in all theirs fears, needs, and hopes, even if that means tactfully challenging them if need be.
The science of the heart permits us to accept others just as they are, and to believe that they can grow to greater beauty and wisdom. the mature heart does not seek to impose faith.
The mature heart listens for what another's heart is called to be. It no longer judges or condemns. It is a heart of forgiveness. Such a heart is a compassionate heart that sees the presence of God in others. It lets itself be led by others into uncharted land. It is the heart that calls us to grow, to change, to evolve, and become more fully human.
Apprehending FORGIVENESS In The Aftermath Of Rape
FORGIVENESS- It's Within God's Gentle Power And Ours
For each one us who are rape victims trying to apprehend true reconciliation in most cases
we need a force that transcends both the oppressed and oppressor. ("As a last resort, for
most of us we cannot define what constitutes our total humanity. In reality it transcends us.")
I think that we all tend to wear masks, the mask of superiority, and some of us the
masks of inferiority, and the mask of worthlessness especially for those of us who know
and feel what it is to be victimized. It is not easy to let our masks come off
("or our walls of defence to come down")...to discover the little child hidden inside us
who yearns for the light of hope and love and who fears being hurt.
The concept of forgiveness however; implies the removal of all those masks,
and entering into a vulnerable acceptance of who we ("truly") are.
The realization that yes; we have been hurt and yes; we have sometimes hurt others.
Forgiveness of ourselves, then, implies an acceptance of our true value.
The loss of a false self-image, if it is an image of superiority, or the need to hide the shame
and the brokenness of our heart that most often causes anguish and inner pain.
We can only except this pain if we discover our true self "beneath" all
those masks and realize that if we are broken, we are also more beautiful
than we ever dared to suspect. When we realize our brokenness in this
manner, we don't have to fall into depression and despair.
When we see our true beauty inside as human beings; we do not have to become
proud as peacocks. Seeing our own brokenness and beauty allows us to recognize,
hidden under the brokenness and self-centredness of others, their beauty,
their value, and their sacredness.
I realize that this discovery is sometimes a leap in the dark, a blessed moment,
a moment of grace, a moment of enlightment that comes in a personal meeting
and relationship with the God of Love, who reveals to those who try to be
receptively meek of heart, that we are His beloved and so is everyone else.
When we have this earnest desire to struggle and grow for wholeness in ourselves,
in others, in our communities, and the world, and as we desire to be free in order
to free others from their prison of pain and victim hood, a new energy is born within us.
An energy that flows freely from God. It is as though we were crossing the Red Sea
from slavery to freedom. It is then that we can start to live the pain of loss and
accept anguish because a new love and consciousness of self are being given to us.
Looking back to the time of Jesus; his teachings and his invitation to love one's
enemies must have appeared dangerously utopian to the Galileans as I'm sure it is
for many even in present day. Maybe it was only when they saw him standing up to
the religious leaders of his day, pursuing a courageous and dangerous course of love,
truth, and the liberation of the oppressed, that some of his followers began to understand
that this was a new way to struggle for peace and to break the seemingly
unending chain of human oppression.
Loving our enemies means to see them as individuals who are perhaps caught up in
a cycle of fear, and of oppression, and in their weak character traits and need for power,
but who are individuals nonetheless and are, beneath everything sacred and precious.
Their secret person is hidden behind walls of fear. To love them is to hope and yearn that
instead of living a form of self-destruction, locked up in their own pride and power,
hoping they can be liberated.
On the night before he died, Jesus knelt humbly down before his disciples, washes their feet,
and called them to do the same. Was it not because Jesus knew how power can be used to
crush and enslave people, rather than to empower and free all sinners ?
Indeed; I think we all need to discover this new force of love and kindly friendship of
forgiveness that comes from God. This vision of love and forgiveness is humanly possible.
Years ago I recall this inspiring book I read about the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.
A group of men stood waiting to be executed. Suddenly; a man stepped forward and volunteered
to replace one of the men who had been condemned to death. The name of the man taking his place,
was a priest...Father Maximilian Kolbe. The German commandant was startled, but he allowed the priest
to take one of the prisoners place. So the priest joined the group of men in the bunker, where he helped
each prisoner make their final passage to death. Before closing the bunker door the guards took the priest
aside to observe the prisoners death. After that they took the priest and later shot him in a firing squad.
By doing this the priest was bearing witness that love is stronger than death.
More recently in 1996 in Algeria a Christian monk was murdered along with six of his brother monks.
They had refused to leave their monastery in a dangerous and unprotected area to bear witness to
God to others who lived there no matter what their religion. Sometime before the monk's death he
entrusted a letter to a village friend to be sent to his mother in the event of his death.
In the letter he gives thanks : ("In this "thank you" which is said for everything in my life,
I certainly include you mother, friends of yesterday and today, and you mom, friend of my final moment.
without you mom I would not be aware of the values of life. Yes mom; for you I want to say a heartfelt
thank you because you have helped me find faith in God. May we meet again in Paradise as two blessed
sinners that forgave each other for all our weaknesses and faults. I'm sure that is what God wanted from
both of us. Till we meet again Love Cherge").
Now there is a supreme example and gift. The gift of forgiveness !
Jesus’ invitation to love our enemies is also a promise, true for Christians and non Christians alike.
What we cannot do by ourselves, we can do with this inner power of the Spirit, which transforms
our hearts of stone, founded on fear and pain, into the hearts of human flesh, open and vulnerable to others.
Through the gift of God's Spirit we receive a new power that humbly permits us to stand firm in love.
To forgive is to break down the walls of hostility that separate us, and bring each other out of anguish,
of loneliness, fear, and chaos into oneness. This oneness is born when we walk in mutual trust, and
acceptance, and the freedom to be ourselves in our uniqueness and beauty. The freedom to
exercise our talents and gifts. We need no longer be contained or held back by fear, prejudices,
or the need to prove ourselves. We need this sense of oneness and belonging which is necessary
for opening our hearts in this needing of each other. Accompanying each other whether we are
weak or strong, capable or not. This oneness and belonging need not bring feelings of superiority
if we are walking towards "inner freedom". It should be important to us not to exclude the weak,
the needy, and those who are different, because they all have a secret power that opens up
people's hearts and leads them to compassion and mutual trust.
This oneness and belonging becomes a song of gratitude for each one of us.
Of course it takes time and patience. But are we not all called to take this journey in life ?
I believe it's necessary if we want to become fully human, to conquer divisions and oppression and to work for peace.
If each of us together begins this journey today and has the courage to forgive and be forgiven, we will no longer
be governed by are hurts. Wherever we may be...in our families, our work places, our friends, or in places of
worship or of leisure...we can all rise up and be agents of a new land of peace.
But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of this world.
We are simply human beings; enfolded in weakness and in hope, all called together to change
our world one human heart at a time.
For each one us who are rape victims trying to apprehend true reconciliation in most cases
we need a force that transcends both the oppressed and oppressor. ("As a last resort, for
most of us we cannot define what constitutes our total humanity. In reality it transcends us.")
I think that we all tend to wear masks, the mask of superiority, and some of us the
masks of inferiority, and the mask of worthlessness especially for those of us who know
and feel what it is to be victimized. It is not easy to let our masks come off
("or our walls of defence to come down")...to discover the little child hidden inside us
who yearns for the light of hope and love and who fears being hurt.
The concept of forgiveness however; implies the removal of all those masks,
and entering into a vulnerable acceptance of who we ("truly") are.
The realization that yes; we have been hurt and yes; we have sometimes hurt others.
Forgiveness of ourselves, then, implies an acceptance of our true value.
The loss of a false self-image, if it is an image of superiority, or the need to hide the shame
and the brokenness of our heart that most often causes anguish and inner pain.
We can only except this pain if we discover our true self "beneath" all
those masks and realize that if we are broken, we are also more beautiful
than we ever dared to suspect. When we realize our brokenness in this
manner, we don't have to fall into depression and despair.
When we see our true beauty inside as human beings; we do not have to become
proud as peacocks. Seeing our own brokenness and beauty allows us to recognize,
hidden under the brokenness and self-centredness of others, their beauty,
their value, and their sacredness.
I realize that this discovery is sometimes a leap in the dark, a blessed moment,
a moment of grace, a moment of enlightment that comes in a personal meeting
and relationship with the God of Love, who reveals to those who try to be
receptively meek of heart, that we are His beloved and so is everyone else.
When we have this earnest desire to struggle and grow for wholeness in ourselves,
in others, in our communities, and the world, and as we desire to be free in order
to free others from their prison of pain and victim hood, a new energy is born within us.
An energy that flows freely from God. It is as though we were crossing the Red Sea
from slavery to freedom. It is then that we can start to live the pain of loss and
accept anguish because a new love and consciousness of self are being given to us.
Looking back to the time of Jesus; his teachings and his invitation to love one's
enemies must have appeared dangerously utopian to the Galileans as I'm sure it is
for many even in present day. Maybe it was only when they saw him standing up to
the religious leaders of his day, pursuing a courageous and dangerous course of love,
truth, and the liberation of the oppressed, that some of his followers began to understand
that this was a new way to struggle for peace and to break the seemingly
unending chain of human oppression.
Loving our enemies means to see them as individuals who are perhaps caught up in
a cycle of fear, and of oppression, and in their weak character traits and need for power,
but who are individuals nonetheless and are, beneath everything sacred and precious.
Their secret person is hidden behind walls of fear. To love them is to hope and yearn that
instead of living a form of self-destruction, locked up in their own pride and power,
hoping they can be liberated.
On the night before he died, Jesus knelt humbly down before his disciples, washes their feet,
and called them to do the same. Was it not because Jesus knew how power can be used to
crush and enslave people, rather than to empower and free all sinners ?
Indeed; I think we all need to discover this new force of love and kindly friendship of
forgiveness that comes from God. This vision of love and forgiveness is humanly possible.
Years ago I recall this inspiring book I read about the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944.
A group of men stood waiting to be executed. Suddenly; a man stepped forward and volunteered
to replace one of the men who had been condemned to death. The name of the man taking his place,
was a priest...Father Maximilian Kolbe. The German commandant was startled, but he allowed the priest
to take one of the prisoners place. So the priest joined the group of men in the bunker, where he helped
each prisoner make their final passage to death. Before closing the bunker door the guards took the priest
aside to observe the prisoners death. After that they took the priest and later shot him in a firing squad.
By doing this the priest was bearing witness that love is stronger than death.
More recently in 1996 in Algeria a Christian monk was murdered along with six of his brother monks.
They had refused to leave their monastery in a dangerous and unprotected area to bear witness to
God to others who lived there no matter what their religion. Sometime before the monk's death he
entrusted a letter to a village friend to be sent to his mother in the event of his death.
In the letter he gives thanks : ("In this "thank you" which is said for everything in my life,
I certainly include you mother, friends of yesterday and today, and you mom, friend of my final moment.
without you mom I would not be aware of the values of life. Yes mom; for you I want to say a heartfelt
thank you because you have helped me find faith in God. May we meet again in Paradise as two blessed
sinners that forgave each other for all our weaknesses and faults. I'm sure that is what God wanted from
both of us. Till we meet again Love Cherge").
Now there is a supreme example and gift. The gift of forgiveness !
Jesus’ invitation to love our enemies is also a promise, true for Christians and non Christians alike.
What we cannot do by ourselves, we can do with this inner power of the Spirit, which transforms
our hearts of stone, founded on fear and pain, into the hearts of human flesh, open and vulnerable to others.
Through the gift of God's Spirit we receive a new power that humbly permits us to stand firm in love.
To forgive is to break down the walls of hostility that separate us, and bring each other out of anguish,
of loneliness, fear, and chaos into oneness. This oneness is born when we walk in mutual trust, and
acceptance, and the freedom to be ourselves in our uniqueness and beauty. The freedom to
exercise our talents and gifts. We need no longer be contained or held back by fear, prejudices,
or the need to prove ourselves. We need this sense of oneness and belonging which is necessary
for opening our hearts in this needing of each other. Accompanying each other whether we are
weak or strong, capable or not. This oneness and belonging need not bring feelings of superiority
if we are walking towards "inner freedom". It should be important to us not to exclude the weak,
the needy, and those who are different, because they all have a secret power that opens up
people's hearts and leads them to compassion and mutual trust.
This oneness and belonging becomes a song of gratitude for each one of us.
Of course it takes time and patience. But are we not all called to take this journey in life ?
I believe it's necessary if we want to become fully human, to conquer divisions and oppression and to work for peace.
If each of us together begins this journey today and has the courage to forgive and be forgiven, we will no longer
be governed by are hurts. Wherever we may be...in our families, our work places, our friends, or in places of
worship or of leisure...we can all rise up and be agents of a new land of peace.
But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of this world.
We are simply human beings; enfolded in weakness and in hope, all called together to change
our world one human heart at a time.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The Psychological Torture Of Rape
In the past and often in the present I have tried to articulate how I have felt since that God-forsaken day
I was gang-raped at gunpoint. What is described and written below pretty well says it all not just for me; but, I think for most rape victims.
................................................................................
........................................................
There is one place in which one's privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed – ("one's body"), a unique temple and a familiar territory of sensa and personal history. The rape torturer invades, defiles and desecrates this shrine. He does so publicly, deliberately, repeatedly and, often, sadistically and sexually, with undisguised pleasure. Hence the all-pervasive, long-lasting, and, frequently, irreversible effects and outcomes of torture.
In a way, the tortured rape victim's own body is rendered his or her worse enemy. It is a corporeal agony that compels the victimized sufferer to mutate, his or her identity to fragment, his or her ideals and principles to crumble. The body becomes an accomplice of the tormentor, an uninterruptible channel of communication, a treasonous, poisoned territory.
Rape torture fosters a humiliating dependency of the abused on the perpetrator. Bodily needs denied – sleep, toilet, food, water – are wrongly perceived by the rape victim as the direct causes of his or her degradation and dehumanization. As he or she sees it, he or she is rendered bestial not by the sadistic bullies around them but by his or her own bodily flesh.
The concept of "body" can easily be extended to "family", or "home". Rape torture is often applied to kin and kith, compatriots, or colleagues. This intends to disrupt the continuity of "surroundings, habits, appearance, relations with others", indeed a sense of cohesive self-identity depends crucially on the familiar and the continuous. By attacking both one's biological body and one's "social body", the victim's psyche is strained to the point of dissociation.
The following describes this transmogrification thus in "Ethics of the Unspeakable: Torture Survivors in Psychoanalytic Treatment":
"As the gap between the 'I' and the 'me' deepens, dissociation and alienation increase. The subject that, under rape torture, was forced into the position of pure object has lost his or her sense of interiority, intimacy, and privacy. Time is experienced now, in the present only, and perspective – that which allows for a sense of relativity – is foreclosed. Thoughts and dreams attack the mind and invade the body as if the protective skin that normally contains our thoughts, gives us space to breathe in between the thought and the thing being thought about, and separates between inside and outside, past and present, me and you, was lost."
Rape torture robs the victim of the most basic modes of relating to reality and, thus, is the equivalent of cognitive death. Space and time are warped by sleep deprivation. The self ("I") is shattered. Men or women tortured by rape have nothing familiar to hold on to: family, home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Gradually, they lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. They feel alien – unable to communicate, relate, attach, or empathize with others.
Rape torture splinters early childhood grandiose narcissistic fantasies of uniqueness, omnipotence, invulnerability, and impenetrability. But it enhances the fantasy of merger with an idealized and omnipotent (though not benign) other – the inflictor of agony. The twin processes of individuation and separation are reversed.
Rape torture is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The savage torturer invades the victim's body, pervades his or her psyche, and possesses the rape victim's mind. Deprived of contact with others and starved for human interactions, the rape abuser bonds with the predator. "Traumatic bonding", akin to the hope and the search for meaning in the brutal and indifferent and nightmarish universe of the torture cell.
The rape abuser becomes the black hole at the center of the victim's surrealistic galaxy, sucking in the sufferer's universal need for solace. The rape victim tries to "control" his or her tormentor by becoming one with their aggressor (introjecting him) and by appealing to the monster's presumably dormant humanity and empathy.
This bonding is especially strong when the savage abuser and the tortured victim form a dyad and "collaborate" in the rituals and acts of torture (for instance, when the rape victim is coerced into selecting the torture implements and the types of torment to be inflicted, or to choose between the lesser of two evils).
"Rape torture is an obscenity in that it joins what is most private with what is most public. Rape torture entails all the isolation and extreme solitude of privacy with none of the usual security embodied therein... Rape torture entails at the same time all the self-exposure of the utterly public with none of its possibilities for camaraderie or shared experience.
("The presence of an all powerful other with whom to merge, without the security of the other's benign intentions.")
A further obscenity of Rape torture is the inversion it makes of intimate human relationships. The interrogation is a form of social encounter in which the normal rules of communicating, of relating, of intimacy are manipulated. Dependency needs are elicited by the interrogator, but not so they may be met as in close relationships, but to weaken and confuse. Independence that is offered in return for 'betrayal' is a lie. Silence is intentionally misinterpreted either as confirmation of information or as guilt for 'complicity'.
Rape torture combines complete humiliating exposure with utter devastating isolation. The final products and outcome of a victimized rape victim are a scarred and often shattered victim and an empty display of the fiction of power."
Obsessed by endless ruminations, demented by pain and a continuum of sleeplessness – the rape victim regresses, shedding all but the most primitive defence mechanisms: splitting, narcissism, dissociation, Projective Identification, introjection, and cognitive dissonance. The victim constructs an alternative world, often suffering from depersonalization and derealisation, hallucinations, ideas of reference, delusions, and psychotic episodes.
Sometimes the rape victim comes to crave pain – very much as self-mutilators do – because it is a proof and a reminder of the rape victims individuated existence otherwise blurred by the incessant torture. Pain shields the rape sufferer from disintegration and capitulation. It preserves the veracity of his or her unthinkable and unspeakable experiences.
This dual process of the rape victim's alienation and addiction to anguish complements the perpetrator's view of his quarry as "inhuman", or "subhuman". The rape abuser assumes the position of the sole authority, the exclusive fount of meaning and interpretation, the source of both evil and good.
Rape torture is about reprogramming the victim to succumb to an alternative exegesis of the world, proffered by the abuser. It is an act of deep, indelible, traumatic indoctrination. Men and women afflicted by rape often swallow whole and assimilates the torturer's negative view of him or her and often, as a result, is rendered suicidal, self-destructive, or self-defeating.
Thus, rape torture has no cut-off date. The sounds, the voices, the smells, the sensations reverberate long after the episode has ended – both in nightmares and in waking moments. The victim's ability to trust other people – i.e., to assume that their motives are at least rational, if not necessarily benign – has been irrevocably undermined. Social institutions are perceived as precariously poised on the verge of an ominous twilight zone. Nothing is either safe, or credible anymore.
Rape victims typically react by undulating between emotional numbing and increased arousal: insomnia, irritability, restlessness, and attention deficits. Recollections of the traumatic events intrude in the form of dreams, night terrors, flashbacks, and distressing associations.
The men and women who suffer rape affliction often develop compulsive rituals to fend off obsessive thoughts. Other psychological sequelae reported include cognitive impairment, reduced capacity to learn, memory disorders, sexual dysfunction, social withdrawal, inability to maintain long-term relationships, or even mere intimacy, phobias, ideas of reference and superstitions, delusions, hallucinations, psychotic micro-episodes, and emotional flatness.
In a nutshell, tortured rape victims suffer from a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.). Their strong feelings of anxiety, guilt, and shame are also typical of victims of childhood abuse, domestic violence, and rape. They feel anxious because the perpetrator's behaviour is seemingly arbitrary and unpredictable – or mechanically and inhumanly regular.
They feel guilty and disgraced because, to restore a semblance of order to their shattered world and a modicum of dominion over their chaotic life, they need to transform themselves into the cause of their own degradation and the accomplices of their tormentors.
"The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on the rape sufferers will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a reversion to an earlier behavioural level. As the subject regresses, his or her learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological order. Rape victims begin to lose their capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to deal with complex situations, or to cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or repeated frustrations."
Inevitably, in the aftermath of torture, the rape victim feel helpless and powerless. This loss of control over one's life and body is manifested physically in impotence, attention deficits, and insomnia. This is often exacerbated by the disbelief many torture victims encounter, especially if they are unable to produce scars, or other "objective" proof of their ordeal. Language cannot communicate such an intensely private experience as pain.
("Pain is also unsharable in that it is resistant to language... All our interior states of consciousness: emotional, perceptual, cognitive and somatic can be described as having an object in the external world... This affirms our capacity to move beyond the boundaries of our body into the external, sharable world. This is the space in which we interact and communicate with our environment. But when we explore the interior state of physical pain we find that there is no object 'out there' – no external, referential content. Pain is not of, or for, anything. Pain is. And it draws us away from the space of interaction, the sharable world, inwards. It draws us into the boundaries of our body.")
Bystanders resent those victimized by rape because it makes them feel guilty and ashamed for having done nothing to prevent the atrocity. Rape victims threaten their sense of security and their much-needed belief in predictability, justice, and rule of law. Those victimized by rape, on their part, do not believe that it is possible to effectively communicate to "outsiders" what they have been through.
"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The rape victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The rape victim demands action, engagement, and remembering."
But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The rape victim wishes to forget the torture, to avoid re-experiencing the often life threatening abuse and to shield his or her human environment from the horrors. In conjunction with the victim's pervasive distrust, this is frequently interpreted as hyper vigilance, or even paranoia. It ("seems") that female and male victims can't win. Rape Torture is forever.
I was gang-raped at gunpoint. What is described and written below pretty well says it all not just for me; but, I think for most rape victims.
................................................................................
........................................................
There is one place in which one's privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed – ("one's body"), a unique temple and a familiar territory of sensa and personal history. The rape torturer invades, defiles and desecrates this shrine. He does so publicly, deliberately, repeatedly and, often, sadistically and sexually, with undisguised pleasure. Hence the all-pervasive, long-lasting, and, frequently, irreversible effects and outcomes of torture.
In a way, the tortured rape victim's own body is rendered his or her worse enemy. It is a corporeal agony that compels the victimized sufferer to mutate, his or her identity to fragment, his or her ideals and principles to crumble. The body becomes an accomplice of the tormentor, an uninterruptible channel of communication, a treasonous, poisoned territory.
Rape torture fosters a humiliating dependency of the abused on the perpetrator. Bodily needs denied – sleep, toilet, food, water – are wrongly perceived by the rape victim as the direct causes of his or her degradation and dehumanization. As he or she sees it, he or she is rendered bestial not by the sadistic bullies around them but by his or her own bodily flesh.
The concept of "body" can easily be extended to "family", or "home". Rape torture is often applied to kin and kith, compatriots, or colleagues. This intends to disrupt the continuity of "surroundings, habits, appearance, relations with others", indeed a sense of cohesive self-identity depends crucially on the familiar and the continuous. By attacking both one's biological body and one's "social body", the victim's psyche is strained to the point of dissociation.
The following describes this transmogrification thus in "Ethics of the Unspeakable: Torture Survivors in Psychoanalytic Treatment":
"As the gap between the 'I' and the 'me' deepens, dissociation and alienation increase. The subject that, under rape torture, was forced into the position of pure object has lost his or her sense of interiority, intimacy, and privacy. Time is experienced now, in the present only, and perspective – that which allows for a sense of relativity – is foreclosed. Thoughts and dreams attack the mind and invade the body as if the protective skin that normally contains our thoughts, gives us space to breathe in between the thought and the thing being thought about, and separates between inside and outside, past and present, me and you, was lost."
Rape torture robs the victim of the most basic modes of relating to reality and, thus, is the equivalent of cognitive death. Space and time are warped by sleep deprivation. The self ("I") is shattered. Men or women tortured by rape have nothing familiar to hold on to: family, home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Gradually, they lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. They feel alien – unable to communicate, relate, attach, or empathize with others.
Rape torture splinters early childhood grandiose narcissistic fantasies of uniqueness, omnipotence, invulnerability, and impenetrability. But it enhances the fantasy of merger with an idealized and omnipotent (though not benign) other – the inflictor of agony. The twin processes of individuation and separation are reversed.
Rape torture is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The savage torturer invades the victim's body, pervades his or her psyche, and possesses the rape victim's mind. Deprived of contact with others and starved for human interactions, the rape abuser bonds with the predator. "Traumatic bonding", akin to the hope and the search for meaning in the brutal and indifferent and nightmarish universe of the torture cell.
The rape abuser becomes the black hole at the center of the victim's surrealistic galaxy, sucking in the sufferer's universal need for solace. The rape victim tries to "control" his or her tormentor by becoming one with their aggressor (introjecting him) and by appealing to the monster's presumably dormant humanity and empathy.
This bonding is especially strong when the savage abuser and the tortured victim form a dyad and "collaborate" in the rituals and acts of torture (for instance, when the rape victim is coerced into selecting the torture implements and the types of torment to be inflicted, or to choose between the lesser of two evils).
"Rape torture is an obscenity in that it joins what is most private with what is most public. Rape torture entails all the isolation and extreme solitude of privacy with none of the usual security embodied therein... Rape torture entails at the same time all the self-exposure of the utterly public with none of its possibilities for camaraderie or shared experience.
("The presence of an all powerful other with whom to merge, without the security of the other's benign intentions.")
A further obscenity of Rape torture is the inversion it makes of intimate human relationships. The interrogation is a form of social encounter in which the normal rules of communicating, of relating, of intimacy are manipulated. Dependency needs are elicited by the interrogator, but not so they may be met as in close relationships, but to weaken and confuse. Independence that is offered in return for 'betrayal' is a lie. Silence is intentionally misinterpreted either as confirmation of information or as guilt for 'complicity'.
Rape torture combines complete humiliating exposure with utter devastating isolation. The final products and outcome of a victimized rape victim are a scarred and often shattered victim and an empty display of the fiction of power."
Obsessed by endless ruminations, demented by pain and a continuum of sleeplessness – the rape victim regresses, shedding all but the most primitive defence mechanisms: splitting, narcissism, dissociation, Projective Identification, introjection, and cognitive dissonance. The victim constructs an alternative world, often suffering from depersonalization and derealisation, hallucinations, ideas of reference, delusions, and psychotic episodes.
Sometimes the rape victim comes to crave pain – very much as self-mutilators do – because it is a proof and a reminder of the rape victims individuated existence otherwise blurred by the incessant torture. Pain shields the rape sufferer from disintegration and capitulation. It preserves the veracity of his or her unthinkable and unspeakable experiences.
This dual process of the rape victim's alienation and addiction to anguish complements the perpetrator's view of his quarry as "inhuman", or "subhuman". The rape abuser assumes the position of the sole authority, the exclusive fount of meaning and interpretation, the source of both evil and good.
Rape torture is about reprogramming the victim to succumb to an alternative exegesis of the world, proffered by the abuser. It is an act of deep, indelible, traumatic indoctrination. Men and women afflicted by rape often swallow whole and assimilates the torturer's negative view of him or her and often, as a result, is rendered suicidal, self-destructive, or self-defeating.
Thus, rape torture has no cut-off date. The sounds, the voices, the smells, the sensations reverberate long after the episode has ended – both in nightmares and in waking moments. The victim's ability to trust other people – i.e., to assume that their motives are at least rational, if not necessarily benign – has been irrevocably undermined. Social institutions are perceived as precariously poised on the verge of an ominous twilight zone. Nothing is either safe, or credible anymore.
Rape victims typically react by undulating between emotional numbing and increased arousal: insomnia, irritability, restlessness, and attention deficits. Recollections of the traumatic events intrude in the form of dreams, night terrors, flashbacks, and distressing associations.
The men and women who suffer rape affliction often develop compulsive rituals to fend off obsessive thoughts. Other psychological sequelae reported include cognitive impairment, reduced capacity to learn, memory disorders, sexual dysfunction, social withdrawal, inability to maintain long-term relationships, or even mere intimacy, phobias, ideas of reference and superstitions, delusions, hallucinations, psychotic micro-episodes, and emotional flatness.
In a nutshell, tortured rape victims suffer from a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.). Their strong feelings of anxiety, guilt, and shame are also typical of victims of childhood abuse, domestic violence, and rape. They feel anxious because the perpetrator's behaviour is seemingly arbitrary and unpredictable – or mechanically and inhumanly regular.
They feel guilty and disgraced because, to restore a semblance of order to their shattered world and a modicum of dominion over their chaotic life, they need to transform themselves into the cause of their own degradation and the accomplices of their tormentors.
"The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on the rape sufferers will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of autonomy, a reversion to an earlier behavioural level. As the subject regresses, his or her learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological order. Rape victims begin to lose their capacity to carry out the highest creative activities, to deal with complex situations, or to cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or repeated frustrations."
Inevitably, in the aftermath of torture, the rape victim feel helpless and powerless. This loss of control over one's life and body is manifested physically in impotence, attention deficits, and insomnia. This is often exacerbated by the disbelief many torture victims encounter, especially if they are unable to produce scars, or other "objective" proof of their ordeal. Language cannot communicate such an intensely private experience as pain.
("Pain is also unsharable in that it is resistant to language... All our interior states of consciousness: emotional, perceptual, cognitive and somatic can be described as having an object in the external world... This affirms our capacity to move beyond the boundaries of our body into the external, sharable world. This is the space in which we interact and communicate with our environment. But when we explore the interior state of physical pain we find that there is no object 'out there' – no external, referential content. Pain is not of, or for, anything. Pain is. And it draws us away from the space of interaction, the sharable world, inwards. It draws us into the boundaries of our body.")
Bystanders resent those victimized by rape because it makes them feel guilty and ashamed for having done nothing to prevent the atrocity. Rape victims threaten their sense of security and their much-needed belief in predictability, justice, and rule of law. Those victimized by rape, on their part, do not believe that it is possible to effectively communicate to "outsiders" what they have been through.
"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The rape victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The rape victim demands action, engagement, and remembering."
But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The rape victim wishes to forget the torture, to avoid re-experiencing the often life threatening abuse and to shield his or her human environment from the horrors. In conjunction with the victim's pervasive distrust, this is frequently interpreted as hyper vigilance, or even paranoia. It ("seems") that female and male victims can't win. Rape Torture is forever.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Overwhelming Fears Of Invasive Medical Procedures
Being a Heterosexual/Asexual male rape victim gang raped; brutally tortured, beaten and sodomized at the hands of sadistic bullies always brings terrifying memories and fears that can sometimes seem unrelenting. I'm not really sure what recollections you men and women here have personally contemplated when it comes to the yearly physical at the doctors office or by chance at a hospital. In particular for me personally I'm paraphrasing ("the dreaded prostate rectal exam"). Not something I think most men would rather think about when your family physician deems it a necessary criteria.
If you happen to be over forty and in my case over fifty it becomes an annual ritualistic medical requirement. Lets be honest; I don't think any of us older guys look forward to this embarrassing exam, coupled with the fact of having your testicles checked out at the same time. If you happen to be a male rape victim suffering with P.T.S.D., such an invasive medical procedure can really trigger the onset of strong painful memories of the past. As for me; I get extremely nervous if any doctor schedules a full physical. My new family doctor is female. Sure she is aware about my traumatic rape past. Not quite sure if she is really that sympathetic though. For most doctors faced with carrying out this invasive procedure; it's all about routine professionalism and the mundane business at hand. No pun intended. I would think the average doctor takes a nonchalant professional attitude when carrying out prostate exams. Hell; do they ever give a second thought about how the patient feels about being on the receiving end of this invasive procedure ? Not a damned chance that I have witnessed. I'm sure some men and woman here can speak about some bad experiences with doctors performing invasive medical exams. I don't know; am I the only rape victim who entertains strong fear of having to go through invasive medical exams. I hate having to talk about this embarrassing topic like no tomorrow.
My health is not the best struggling with health related issues such as cardiac problems and being an insulin dependent diabetic which has caused me to develop kidney problems. Recently; my family physician has referred me to see a urologist who wants to perform some invasive bladder test. I think they call it a cystoscopy. If you only knew how much extreme fear I'm having about this. How the hell do I confront these fears. I'm almost thinking of neglecting these test.
I wish I could fight off my torturous memories of my rape. I detest any man touching my privates, doctors included. What am I to do ?
My overall unnerving health situation "both physical and mental" often places me at odds with doctors and nurses in general with good reason based on bad experiences with distant and indifferent medical professionals. I state this without trying to sound off as being cynical or judgmental against the overall medical profession which for the most part I have a lot of respect for. I began my arduous road to recovery five years ago on January 3rd, 2003. Twenty-three years prior to that I buried and blanked-out most of the painful horrors of my rape past in my subconscious. Looking at hindsight I suspect all those painful horrors and festering memories of my rape past were really at the surface without my resolute sanity permitting my conscious to deal with such extreme pain. It took twenty-three years of life's ups and downs for that emotional ticking time bomb to blow it's fuse causing me to have a major nervous break down five years ago.
My personal critique and prognostication of today's self-professed "can-do-no-wrong" consummate medical profession often places me at odds with the unscrupulous indifferent behaviors of numerous doctors, nurses, and shrinks who are increasingly present in today's overall medical scene, largely due to increasing work load stress, the lack of staff and resources. Don't get me wrong; I'm not black-listing the medical profession. Not many doctors and nurses have the time or patience to listen to one lone male rape victim who has a differentiating host of fears to address.
Meanwhile; a male rape victim is forced to suck-up his own fears and pain because their are a lot of indifferent people who just don't give a rats ass about someone else's struggling painful problems and overwhelming anxious worries.
In the end due to personal health reasons I am forced to deal with the indignity of having invasive medical procedures without any doctor or nurse truly listening to my fears and concerns.
I had a lot of respect for my last family doctor who retired just over two years ago. I had him for thirty years. He was very understanding and compassionate about my past which I revealed to him in painstaking detail in an addressed letter. He was not only the best doctor I ever had, but; a respected friend. It's damned difficult when you build up a trusting relationship with a professional doctor only to sadly see him retire because of being overworked and burnt-out due to a shortage of doctors. He now devotes his efforts in the palliative care unit at the local city hospital. My new family physician; a female who took over my former family doctors practice is difficult to relate to. She is strictly business and emotionally stoic. I don't even have the luxury of finding another physician.
I have no qualms about seeing a female physician if only her disposition would grant more pliancy and candor.
Damn get a life why don't she. They say if you want to understand and embrace the virtue of humility.
Be prepared to be humiliated. I have felt humiliated for almost the last thirty years.
I'm not so sure there is really anything to be learned by dealing with the prospect of having to go through invasive medical procedures whether your a female or male rape victim.
Inescapably there is only two cold realities to such procedures. No#1. You suck-up your shame and embarrassments and reluctantly go through the stressful fears and triggers of having a doctor/nurse probe and insert instruments inside you in places you would rather not.
No#2. You say fuck it and ignore it and refuse to let yourself be traumatized all over again and don't allow yourself to go through such triggering embarrassments and fears anymore. There is another option but that requires the humiliation and triggering shame of relating your past to a hopefully receptive empathetic nurse or doctor who is genuinely understanding and supportive.
The likely hood of a female victim finding support in this area likely outweighs the same empathetic support for a lone male rape victim.
The worst damned part that goes against my favor is that I have to embarrassingly admit that I am Androphobic.
No I didn't say Homophobic....("Androphobic")
Much of that was induced by the horrors of my torturous rape.
Now how the hell does a Heterosexual/Asexual male rape victim convey that to any medical professional without being likely ridiculed or categorized.
Most woman who undergo invasive medical procedures by a male doctor usually have a female nurse in the room with them.
Now how humiliating is it for a man to ask for a female nurse to be in the room when he is undergoing an invasive medical procedures.
Not very damned likely. And how would a female nurse evaluate a male patient if he made such a request.
It's highly probable that the female nurse would surmise that such a male patients request was perverted.
So where the hell does that leave me ?
We live in a stereotyped society preconditioned to biasedly prejudge certain situations that do not seem the expected norm. Especially if it’s a man addressing fears.
If you happen to be over forty and in my case over fifty it becomes an annual ritualistic medical requirement. Lets be honest; I don't think any of us older guys look forward to this embarrassing exam, coupled with the fact of having your testicles checked out at the same time. If you happen to be a male rape victim suffering with P.T.S.D., such an invasive medical procedure can really trigger the onset of strong painful memories of the past. As for me; I get extremely nervous if any doctor schedules a full physical. My new family doctor is female. Sure she is aware about my traumatic rape past. Not quite sure if she is really that sympathetic though. For most doctors faced with carrying out this invasive procedure; it's all about routine professionalism and the mundane business at hand. No pun intended. I would think the average doctor takes a nonchalant professional attitude when carrying out prostate exams. Hell; do they ever give a second thought about how the patient feels about being on the receiving end of this invasive procedure ? Not a damned chance that I have witnessed. I'm sure some men and woman here can speak about some bad experiences with doctors performing invasive medical exams. I don't know; am I the only rape victim who entertains strong fear of having to go through invasive medical exams. I hate having to talk about this embarrassing topic like no tomorrow.
My health is not the best struggling with health related issues such as cardiac problems and being an insulin dependent diabetic which has caused me to develop kidney problems. Recently; my family physician has referred me to see a urologist who wants to perform some invasive bladder test. I think they call it a cystoscopy. If you only knew how much extreme fear I'm having about this. How the hell do I confront these fears. I'm almost thinking of neglecting these test.
I wish I could fight off my torturous memories of my rape. I detest any man touching my privates, doctors included. What am I to do ?
My overall unnerving health situation "both physical and mental" often places me at odds with doctors and nurses in general with good reason based on bad experiences with distant and indifferent medical professionals. I state this without trying to sound off as being cynical or judgmental against the overall medical profession which for the most part I have a lot of respect for. I began my arduous road to recovery five years ago on January 3rd, 2003. Twenty-three years prior to that I buried and blanked-out most of the painful horrors of my rape past in my subconscious. Looking at hindsight I suspect all those painful horrors and festering memories of my rape past were really at the surface without my resolute sanity permitting my conscious to deal with such extreme pain. It took twenty-three years of life's ups and downs for that emotional ticking time bomb to blow it's fuse causing me to have a major nervous break down five years ago.
My personal critique and prognostication of today's self-professed "can-do-no-wrong" consummate medical profession often places me at odds with the unscrupulous indifferent behaviors of numerous doctors, nurses, and shrinks who are increasingly present in today's overall medical scene, largely due to increasing work load stress, the lack of staff and resources. Don't get me wrong; I'm not black-listing the medical profession. Not many doctors and nurses have the time or patience to listen to one lone male rape victim who has a differentiating host of fears to address.
Meanwhile; a male rape victim is forced to suck-up his own fears and pain because their are a lot of indifferent people who just don't give a rats ass about someone else's struggling painful problems and overwhelming anxious worries.
In the end due to personal health reasons I am forced to deal with the indignity of having invasive medical procedures without any doctor or nurse truly listening to my fears and concerns.
I had a lot of respect for my last family doctor who retired just over two years ago. I had him for thirty years. He was very understanding and compassionate about my past which I revealed to him in painstaking detail in an addressed letter. He was not only the best doctor I ever had, but; a respected friend. It's damned difficult when you build up a trusting relationship with a professional doctor only to sadly see him retire because of being overworked and burnt-out due to a shortage of doctors. He now devotes his efforts in the palliative care unit at the local city hospital. My new family physician; a female who took over my former family doctors practice is difficult to relate to. She is strictly business and emotionally stoic. I don't even have the luxury of finding another physician.
I have no qualms about seeing a female physician if only her disposition would grant more pliancy and candor.
Damn get a life why don't she. They say if you want to understand and embrace the virtue of humility.
Be prepared to be humiliated. I have felt humiliated for almost the last thirty years.
I'm not so sure there is really anything to be learned by dealing with the prospect of having to go through invasive medical procedures whether your a female or male rape victim.
Inescapably there is only two cold realities to such procedures. No#1. You suck-up your shame and embarrassments and reluctantly go through the stressful fears and triggers of having a doctor/nurse probe and insert instruments inside you in places you would rather not.
No#2. You say fuck it and ignore it and refuse to let yourself be traumatized all over again and don't allow yourself to go through such triggering embarrassments and fears anymore. There is another option but that requires the humiliation and triggering shame of relating your past to a hopefully receptive empathetic nurse or doctor who is genuinely understanding and supportive.
The likely hood of a female victim finding support in this area likely outweighs the same empathetic support for a lone male rape victim.
The worst damned part that goes against my favor is that I have to embarrassingly admit that I am Androphobic.
No I didn't say Homophobic....("Androphobic")
Much of that was induced by the horrors of my torturous rape.
Now how the hell does a Heterosexual/Asexual male rape victim convey that to any medical professional without being likely ridiculed or categorized.
Most woman who undergo invasive medical procedures by a male doctor usually have a female nurse in the room with them.
Now how humiliating is it for a man to ask for a female nurse to be in the room when he is undergoing an invasive medical procedures.
Not very damned likely. And how would a female nurse evaluate a male patient if he made such a request.
It's highly probable that the female nurse would surmise that such a male patients request was perverted.
So where the hell does that leave me ?
We live in a stereotyped society preconditioned to biasedly prejudge certain situations that do not seem the expected norm. Especially if it’s a man addressing fears.
Shrinks & Doctors Scrutinizing Pros & Cons
I would suspect that this is a topic of retrospection would give many here reason to ponder their own respective personal reviews.
Although in the last five years in recovery I have seen a number of psychiatrist's and psychologist's. I have tried hard to keep an open objective mind as to how
their analysis of me may seem legitimate according to their introspection of my characteristic demeanour and how it relates to my Rape-Related P.T.S.D.
and other related anxieties. For the most part I am ("somewhat") satisfied with their analysis.
However; being a Heterosexual Male Rape Victim
doesn't always allow for adequate psychotherapy services respectively attenuated for male rape victims.
I did read one post here at Pandora’s Aquarium that struck me as rather oddly confusing.
The person stated that there was "No" female, male, heterosexual, homosexual, or C.S.A. victims here...just rape victims inclusive. I find that description too restrictive.
There are unique differences and circumstances that every rape victim identifies with. When I began my recovery five years ago my first psychiatrist's didn't believe my past. And he made it quite obvious.
Needless to say I didn't stay long, three months was enough of that crap. I had an extremely difficult time finding a shrink that was willing to take my case. Statistically; so few male rape victims seek help due to the heavy stigma attached to male rape along with societal bias categorizing all male rape victims unfairly as gay or ex-cons.
In Atlantic Canada the luxury of finding a psychiatrist's or psychologist that is adequately trained and experienced working with male rape victims doesn't come by chance lightly, if at all. In the last five years I've been bounced around from one shrink to another who all have peculiar behaviours of their own.
You come across good-ones and terrible ones who seem so distant making me wonder why the hell they're even there doing such a job. Especially after I had laid out my painful vulnerabilities and fears in front of them to analyze and rationalize under their impassive scrutiny.
In light of all this I often question the validity of certain Psychiatrist's and Psychologist from time to time. Particularly when you think that there so called medical science is barely one-hundred and fifty years old.
It takes a very unique special doctor, nurse, psychiatrist, and psychologist with exceptional kindness, empathy and compassion to truly come to understand people afflicted with pain and suffering.
Indeed any woman or man who sustains the accursed ravagement and abysmal poignancy of a rape affliction.
It can be exceedingly worrisome and disconcerting trying to entrust to any person your own savage affliction relating to a harrowing rape.
There are numerous incompatible psychotherapy situations that fail to recognize the discrepant issues that encompass sexual orientation fears, associated with respective females and males who are victimized by violent rape.
While there are indeed a selective number of very good shrinks; In some critical circles there is reason to suggest that a growing number of shrinks excessively pride themselves into thinking that they have established a utopianized quick fix therapy solution to healing the afflictive mental stigma and pain of their rape patients. When in fact, all they've done is put a frail decaying bandage over tormenting wounds of pain and misery;
temporarily lulling to sleep and numbing the anguish from a vast number of woman and men who have suffered one of the worst atrocities conceivable by the human race.
What is it with the assuming overconfidence of many psychiatrist and psychologist ? What with their Freudian, Adler, and Jungian hodgepodge of theoretical hypothesis, suppositions, and speculations.
It shouldn't be of any big surprise that a number of shrinks today receive critique and disreputable reviews. While I do believe there are empathetically gifted psychiatrist's and psychologist's, that lend themselves to having an effective virtuosity.
Definitively however; shrinks are still far removed from adopting a perfected medical science which is still in it's infancy. Psychiatry and Psychology is a science of associationism, applied to a human cognitive process,
intrinsically structured with rudimentary and underlying half-truths, subject to a variance of representational perceptions and theoretical opinions infused with human fallibility.
Am I saying that shrinks are no good ? Of course not. I'm just saying that it requires prudence in finding the right one. While I am on the topic of Shrinks I might as well add Doctors to this list.
The last time I looked up the term Medical Treatment it was defined as the care of a patient seeking medical attention.
Every person who comes into a hospital or medical clinic is in need of some form of physical or mental help.
In essence, what they seek to discover is the compassionate skills and supportive help of a doctor who is willing to ("Listen") to their patient.
Perhaps I am emphasizing the term ("listen") broadly but, is not a doctor someone who helps someone else ?
When did the term "Doctor" ever get treated with so much reverence ? ( Oh ! right this way Dr. Smith, or excuse me Dr. Soles, what wonderful footpads your wearing, or pardon me Dr. Patterson; but, your flatulence has no odour).
At what point in history did a doctor become more than a trusted and learned friend who visited the sick, the diseased, and the dying ?
Are not ("real") Doctors humane caring people who take the sincere time to listen to their patients, not just as somebody who suffers with an injury, sickness or disease; but, more importantly treating their patients first and foremost as a human being first. If diseases are going to be truly fought, why not fight one of the greatest diseases of all...("Indifference") !
Numerous medical universities throughout North America, lecture doctor wannabes on transference and professional distance apart from their patients. Transference is inevitable.
Every human being has an impact on another. A doctors mission is not merely objective to preventing death and alleviating physical and mental suffering; but, to improve the quality of life in each and everyone of their patients.
That is why doctors treat diseases and suffering. They win some, they lose some. If doctors are to truly treat their patients, why not treat them as a person first, before the disease or suffering.
There's every guarantee they'll win, no matter what the outcome of the patient. There are some doctors who seem so damned anesthetised and lifelessly numbed out in their quest to understand the meaning of life.
Many doctors have much to learn about humanity. Taking the precious time to listen, laugh, and even cry with their patients.
Doctors can learn a wealth of knowledge from the heartfelt dedication of "nurses" who have stood through tested time and time again next to a suffering patient
with physical and mental fears, pain, and tears; concernedly and reassuringly holding the hand of an anguished, lonely, patient in real need of timeless moments of compassionate love and companionship.
In essence the genuine compassionate heart of a "real" nurse takes the initiative to know her patient well. Yes; doctors can truly be extraordinary human beings.
Real doctors have worked and studied long and hard to become the best skilled and sometimes the only trusted compassionate friend a patient will meet in dire moments of medical care.
No doctor however; should behave in a cold, impersonal, or indifferent manner, by professionally distancing themselves from their patient.
The best qualities and God-given natural ability a genuine doctor has, is not brought into harmony exclusively by their medical skills and knowledge, but; the healing gift of their innermost heart to their patient.
Although in the last five years in recovery I have seen a number of psychiatrist's and psychologist's. I have tried hard to keep an open objective mind as to how
their analysis of me may seem legitimate according to their introspection of my characteristic demeanour and how it relates to my Rape-Related P.T.S.D.
and other related anxieties. For the most part I am ("somewhat") satisfied with their analysis.
However; being a Heterosexual Male Rape Victim
doesn't always allow for adequate psychotherapy services respectively attenuated for male rape victims.
I did read one post here at Pandora’s Aquarium that struck me as rather oddly confusing.
The person stated that there was "No" female, male, heterosexual, homosexual, or C.S.A. victims here...just rape victims inclusive. I find that description too restrictive.
There are unique differences and circumstances that every rape victim identifies with. When I began my recovery five years ago my first psychiatrist's didn't believe my past. And he made it quite obvious.
Needless to say I didn't stay long, three months was enough of that crap. I had an extremely difficult time finding a shrink that was willing to take my case. Statistically; so few male rape victims seek help due to the heavy stigma attached to male rape along with societal bias categorizing all male rape victims unfairly as gay or ex-cons.
In Atlantic Canada the luxury of finding a psychiatrist's or psychologist that is adequately trained and experienced working with male rape victims doesn't come by chance lightly, if at all. In the last five years I've been bounced around from one shrink to another who all have peculiar behaviours of their own.
You come across good-ones and terrible ones who seem so distant making me wonder why the hell they're even there doing such a job. Especially after I had laid out my painful vulnerabilities and fears in front of them to analyze and rationalize under their impassive scrutiny.
In light of all this I often question the validity of certain Psychiatrist's and Psychologist from time to time. Particularly when you think that there so called medical science is barely one-hundred and fifty years old.
It takes a very unique special doctor, nurse, psychiatrist, and psychologist with exceptional kindness, empathy and compassion to truly come to understand people afflicted with pain and suffering.
Indeed any woman or man who sustains the accursed ravagement and abysmal poignancy of a rape affliction.
It can be exceedingly worrisome and disconcerting trying to entrust to any person your own savage affliction relating to a harrowing rape.
There are numerous incompatible psychotherapy situations that fail to recognize the discrepant issues that encompass sexual orientation fears, associated with respective females and males who are victimized by violent rape.
While there are indeed a selective number of very good shrinks; In some critical circles there is reason to suggest that a growing number of shrinks excessively pride themselves into thinking that they have established a utopianized quick fix therapy solution to healing the afflictive mental stigma and pain of their rape patients. When in fact, all they've done is put a frail decaying bandage over tormenting wounds of pain and misery;
temporarily lulling to sleep and numbing the anguish from a vast number of woman and men who have suffered one of the worst atrocities conceivable by the human race.
What is it with the assuming overconfidence of many psychiatrist and psychologist ? What with their Freudian, Adler, and Jungian hodgepodge of theoretical hypothesis, suppositions, and speculations.
It shouldn't be of any big surprise that a number of shrinks today receive critique and disreputable reviews. While I do believe there are empathetically gifted psychiatrist's and psychologist's, that lend themselves to having an effective virtuosity.
Definitively however; shrinks are still far removed from adopting a perfected medical science which is still in it's infancy. Psychiatry and Psychology is a science of associationism, applied to a human cognitive process,
intrinsically structured with rudimentary and underlying half-truths, subject to a variance of representational perceptions and theoretical opinions infused with human fallibility.
Am I saying that shrinks are no good ? Of course not. I'm just saying that it requires prudence in finding the right one. While I am on the topic of Shrinks I might as well add Doctors to this list.
The last time I looked up the term Medical Treatment it was defined as the care of a patient seeking medical attention.
Every person who comes into a hospital or medical clinic is in need of some form of physical or mental help.
In essence, what they seek to discover is the compassionate skills and supportive help of a doctor who is willing to ("Listen") to their patient.
Perhaps I am emphasizing the term ("listen") broadly but, is not a doctor someone who helps someone else ?
When did the term "Doctor" ever get treated with so much reverence ? ( Oh ! right this way Dr. Smith, or excuse me Dr. Soles, what wonderful footpads your wearing, or pardon me Dr. Patterson; but, your flatulence has no odour).
At what point in history did a doctor become more than a trusted and learned friend who visited the sick, the diseased, and the dying ?
Are not ("real") Doctors humane caring people who take the sincere time to listen to their patients, not just as somebody who suffers with an injury, sickness or disease; but, more importantly treating their patients first and foremost as a human being first. If diseases are going to be truly fought, why not fight one of the greatest diseases of all...("Indifference") !
Numerous medical universities throughout North America, lecture doctor wannabes on transference and professional distance apart from their patients. Transference is inevitable.
Every human being has an impact on another. A doctors mission is not merely objective to preventing death and alleviating physical and mental suffering; but, to improve the quality of life in each and everyone of their patients.
That is why doctors treat diseases and suffering. They win some, they lose some. If doctors are to truly treat their patients, why not treat them as a person first, before the disease or suffering.
There's every guarantee they'll win, no matter what the outcome of the patient. There are some doctors who seem so damned anesthetised and lifelessly numbed out in their quest to understand the meaning of life.
Many doctors have much to learn about humanity. Taking the precious time to listen, laugh, and even cry with their patients.
Doctors can learn a wealth of knowledge from the heartfelt dedication of "nurses" who have stood through tested time and time again next to a suffering patient
with physical and mental fears, pain, and tears; concernedly and reassuringly holding the hand of an anguished, lonely, patient in real need of timeless moments of compassionate love and companionship.
In essence the genuine compassionate heart of a "real" nurse takes the initiative to know her patient well. Yes; doctors can truly be extraordinary human beings.
Real doctors have worked and studied long and hard to become the best skilled and sometimes the only trusted compassionate friend a patient will meet in dire moments of medical care.
No doctor however; should behave in a cold, impersonal, or indifferent manner, by professionally distancing themselves from their patient.
The best qualities and God-given natural ability a genuine doctor has, is not brought into harmony exclusively by their medical skills and knowledge, but; the healing gift of their innermost heart to their patient.
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