Open Letters

· We want you to know that our responses are often just as confusing to us as to you, and we may not be able to answer all your questions asking “Why?”

· We want you to work with us to make sex become either possible, or better, for both of us.

We want you to understand these things about why sex is so difficult for us:

· Our traumatic sexual violation as a child is deeply stamped on the experience of sex for us. When we have sex with you, the unresolved memories of this violation can be triggered so easily. Sometimes our minds flash back and exchange you with our perpetrator. We don’t want that to happen, but we don’t have much control over it as long as those memories are hidden or unresolved.

· The effects of sexual violation in childhood surpass any other type of abuse.

· Approximately 95% of people with DID were sexually traumatized as children. This bears witness to how overwhelming this kind of abuse is to a young child.

· Dealing with our sexual abuse memories is not easy either. It requires revisiting those seemingly intolerable moments of violation & identifying the beliefs that came as a result, so they can be addressed and God can speak truth and healing into them. All areas of our abuse have to be dealt with in this manner, but revisiting the sexual violation memories are perhaps the most difficult. It takes tremendous ego strength, courage, and motivation. It is like diving into the deepest end of a swimming pool filled with black swamp water and swarming with alligators and water moccasins to open the drain at the bottom, not knowing whether we will come out alive (that is how it feels). Because of the inner strength that it takes to do this, please don’t expect us to do it early in our healing journey. If we are left completely on our own to do it, it may, in fact, be the last thing we finally have the guts to do. Or we may just skip it altogether.

· But you can make a difference in this. If we know that we have a loving partner who understands the difficulty of the process and if we can feel your support as we work towards this goal, it may increase our motivation and courage to actually face those dreaded memories.

· Shame is one of the aftereffects of sexual abuse that we also want you to understand. This shame may be attached to our physical bodies, the act of sex itself, and/or just talking about sexual things. Because of this we may need you to initiate any discussion about how we can improve our sexual experience.

We want you to understand these things about our behaviors in regard to sex:

· When we set boundaries, this doesn’t mean we are rejecting you as our love-mate.

· When we say “No,” it doesn’t mean we don’t love you.

· When we cannot say “No” and have it honored, we feel used as a sexual object just like our abusers did to us. We feel it as re-victimization, and it sets us back rather than moving forward into a more positive sexual experience with you.

· We never had the freedom to say “No” to our perpetrators. We would like you to help us experience the right to say “No” and have it respected. This is absolutely necessary for us to move out of the “victim role” in regard to sex. If you want to know how you can help us move towards a healthier sexual relationship with you, this is a crucial step. It will make us feel safer with you. It is very scary to open the door to a sexual relationship if we do not have an escape hatch or rip cord. If you can give this to us, it will make a big difference.

Some other things that would make sex feel safer to us are:

· Please don’t pull surprises on us. Anything that hits us unexpectedly is apt to trigger those of us with DID to switch into a protective alter. If we are to have a positive sexual experience with you, we would like you to express or exhibit your intentions over a period of perhaps hours. (Someone once said, “Good sex begins at breakfast.”) Leading us gradually into the sexual experience enables us to adjust our identity system into the best position for having sex when the time comes. While being able to be “spontaneous” in sex may be a goal to work towards, we may not be able to handle that until we have gained more healing.

· On the other hand, it’s okay to ask us if we might be up to it as long as you are willing to abide by our response.

· Please don’t hold us in restrictive “clamp downs” during sex. This makes us feel trapped and is apt to cause flashbacks to our abuse.

· We need you to respect whatever boundaries we have set as well as the times we choose to say, “No,” as explained above.

Some of the things that would make sex a better experience for us are:

· The best sexual experience for us is when we truly feel loved by you and it becomes an expression of that love.

· We want you to make love to us as a person, not just our body.

· We like being close to you, talking and sharing our hearts with each other. We like affectionate touches during the day that are not necessarily sexual in nature—like the pats and hugs you may give to your sister. All of these increase our feeling of love, safety, and comfort with being near you.

· We know sex is an area of great importance to you. Therefore, we hope that you will make it so important that you are willing to sit down and talk to us about it so that we can better understand each other and design an individually tailored approach to sex in our marriage. We want to feel that we are equal partners in negotiating this. Some of the things we may need to talk about:

· What your needs are and what our needs are

· What your desires are and what our desires are

· What things make sex seem safer to each of us

· What things make sex more enjoyable for each of us

· How we are each most comfortable with having a sexual experience initiated

· What boundaries you want us to respect in regard to sex and what we boundaries we want you to respect in regard to our sexual experiences

· These will reflect the things we are each comfortable with and what we are not

· These can change in either direction over time:

· When we are dealing most potently with our sexual abuse issues in therapy

· As we gain greater healing of those memories

· As we learn a healthier interpretation of various sex acts

· What to do if in the middle of sex, I am triggered into past memories, experiences, etc.

· Since we both bring sexual “baggage” into the marriage, we both need to examine our beliefs about sex and identify their roots. Healing will come when, in the emotional context of that original situation, we allow God the opportunity to change those beliefs. (This may need to take place within a therapy session.)

Please understand that each sexual abuse survivor may be different in what they can handle at any given time. Some cannot tolerate sex at all for at least some periods during the healing journey. Others may be able to do it intermittently, when things are going well. Some of us may have alter-identities that can handle sex well, but you mustn’t count on this always occurring.

Sometimes you may need to help us go through a desensitization process in order for us to move into a positive sexual experience with us. We may need to go through a step-wise sequence of becoming comfortable with the visual experience of nudity, then with touching gradually more sexual parts of the body, then moving forward with heavier “petting,” and finally into having sex under the safe conditions we have stipulated. We need to warn you that we might have to go through this desensitization a number of times through the healing process if we have DID. In the end bringing our Original Self, or true identity, to be comfortable with the sexual experience will be most important.

Please, will you help us get where you want us to be?

Your loving spouse

(This letter reflects a compilation of thoughts expressed by

numerous sexual abuse survivors gathered at the

“Restoring Shattered Marriages” retreat conducted by

Restoration in Christ Ministries in May 2006.)

An Open Letter to

Child Sexual Abusers

Dear Father,

Step-father,

Grandfather,

Brother,

Uncle,

Babysitter,

Neighbor,

Whoever you are--

You who see that innocent child playing happily in her yard,

lying peacefully in her bed--

You who are tempted to suavely enter her private domain and

take a little sexual joy for yourself,

My heart cries to you from its deepest depths, "BEFORE YOU TOUCH, please, PLEASE, PLEASE, oh please, consider what damage you are inflicting upon her."

"Just one time," you say.

"She won't be aware; she's sleeping."

"She's too young to even know it's wrong."

"She'll think we're playing."

"I won't go all the way."

"She needs to learn about sex."

Yes, you have your excuses, your reasons, your alibis; but deep down you know that it's your own self-centered pleasure and the need to feel your power that lies at the heart of this lustful desire. Oh, selfish man, will you not realize that the power of love and self-control is by far the mightier sword to wield. It leaves no scars of guilt or shame or remorse--no scars on you and no scars on her. Scars are forever, my friend. The wounds may heal but the scars never ever completely disappear. Do you really want to wound her? Do you really want her to bear the permanent scars of your selfish pleasure? What has she done, I ask you, what has she done to deserve such a destiny?

"You talk of wounds and scars and destiny," I hear you say. "I'm talking of only a touch, only a caress, only a feel. I do not mean to damage her."

And that is just why I am writing to you. You do not know the depth of agony that touch, that caress, that feel will cause that child to bear. The fact that she has been betrayed by one in whom she fearlessly put her love and trust will be too overwhelming for her to handle as a child. The reaction you see will be small or even one of positive receptivity as she drinks in the feeling of pseudo-affection for which she has perhaps been starved, but don't you know that down the road, yes, down the road some day she will have to deal with this memory of violation and abuse? Sooner or later she will know that those were hands that moved not in love for her, not in warm affection, but only for themselves. They took; they did not give. They took that which was most precious to her, that which was to be hers alone.

And then the pain; the searing, tearing, tormenting pain; will wrench the very depths of her being--the pain of betrayal, the pain of humiliation and shame, the pain of being used instead of loved, exploited instead of protected. And that pain won't last just a day, nor just a week. It will go on for months and months and perhaps even years as she resurrects those long buried emotions which she could never express as a child, those emotions that subtly continue to hold her life in dismal bondage. They will all need to come out in order for her ever to be set free from their power.

It will take much strength and courage on her part to walk the long, fiery road to healing; but if she doesn't, she will continue to be plagued by deep inner hostility, depression, psychosomatic illnesses and malfunctions in many areas of her life. It will undoubtedly affect her ability to relate to men in a healthy way. She will be caught between the extremes of fear and sexual frigidity, on the one hand, and promiscuity on the other, knowing how to relate to men only through sex, forever craving the true love and affection she never got as a child. She will have difficulty in forming deep, trusting relationships. Her enormous load of repressed anger will unexpectedly explode at inappropriate times and usually at those she loves the most. If she has children, she may be hindered in developing the normal intimacy of the parent-child relationship. She may even be inclined to mistreat them, thus continuing the cycle of abuse. In any case, the joy of motherhood will probably be much decreased for her as she battles feelings of inadequacy, guilt, self-hate and depression. She will also be greatly predisposed to alcoholism and drug abuse, unconsciously trying to escape from the inner pain which haunts her so relentlessly.

These, my friend, are just a few of the damages she will suffer from your selfish act. Do you really want her to be marred in this way? Please, I beg you again, please consider these facts-- BEFORE YOU TOUCH!

Painfully written by . . .

One So Touched

For Reprint Permission Contact:

Restoration in Christ Ministries

P.O. Box 479

Grottoes, VA 24441-0479

540-249-9119