“Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor’s Story” Lynn C. Tolson blog

I went back to school in my forties to use the college resources to research the correlation between sexual assault and suicide attempts. Missouri Western State University, Department of Social Work and Sociology.  Suicide is not (in and of itself) a psychiatric condition: it is an extreme reaction to extreme human conditions. Basically, those who have been sexually abused are 14 times more likely to attempt suicide. Here is a synopsis of the research, which appeared as an article in the National Association of Social Workers, Missouri Chapter Newsletter.

Sexual Assault as an Antecedent to Suicide Attempts:

A Synopsis From Academic Research

by Lynn C. Tolson, BSW

This article is adapted from research and a presentation conducted by the author at the annual Social Work Institute at Missouri Western State University, Saint Joseph, MO. The purpose of this article is to discuss the relationship between sexual assault and suicide attempts. Research has focused on sexual assault or suicide attempts but few study sexual assault as a precursor to suicide attempts. Although sexual assault occurs across all classes, races, and ethnic groups, rape is the only crime where women are the majority victims. Furthermore, statistics show that females attempt suicide more often than males. Thus, the trauma of a sexual assault may be a precursor to a suicide attempt.

The confluence of factors leading to suicide obscures a path that may possibly point to an attempter’s history as a victim of sexual assault. Since suicide attempts are not crimes and drug overdoses may or may not be intentional, it makes it even more difficult to determine which, if any, suicide attempts are related to sexual assault.

Counselors screen for suicide risk by determining previous attempts, which is a primary indicator of future attempts. In suicide, the closest diagnosis is depression. Clinicians recognize that a suicidal client may present with symptoms of depression, such as fatigue, over-or under-eating, inability to focus, and/or sleeping too little or too much. However, the underlying cause of a victim’s distress must be considered, instead of merely treating a symptom, such as depression. Counselors may consider that a sexual assault history be included when screening for suicide by asking, “Has anyone touched you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable?” This questioning occurs only after the counselors have determined that the client has adequate coping skills and support systems. Follow-up services on the sexually assaulted and/or the suicidal are necessary to prevent an ultimate suicide.

Difficulties arise when victims do not report rapes even in the privacy of a counseling session. In some cases, the victim may not remember the assault, if, perhaps, she had been drugged and passed out. The victim may not reveal for other reasons, such as being blamed for the assault, fearing retaliation from the attacker, or public humiliation. Many survivors of sexual assault may believe rape myths. One such myth is that the typical rapist is a stranger to the victim. In fact, studies revealed the prevalence of date rape and/or acquaintance rape.

Counselors in the community (Saint Joseph, MO) appear to be doing all that they can given the lack of resources to meet the needs. Yet an inadequacy of services may cause individual victims of sexual assault to suffer in isolation and/or to cry out for help in the context of suicide attempts. Services intended to prevent, intervene, and treat sexual assault and/or suicide are inadequate due to lack of funding and staffing. This is unfortunate, given that the need for early rape and suicide prevention programs are necessary prior to adolescence. Agencies should start early in prevention via awareness in the community, and stay long in treating the survivor via support groups.

Churches, schools, and family/community centers may be appropriate avenues for increasing awareness. These institutions must be aware of the rape myths and facts in order to serve victims with knowledge and care. In addition, community members must be mindful of the risk factors associated with suicide to prevent completed suicides.

Society perpetuates stigmas pertaining to suicide and rape; these stigmas cast a code of silence that solves neither problem. The silence limits the study of correlations between sexual assault and suicide attempts. The limits of research diminish public awareness of social issues. However, sexual assault and/or suicide attempts are not merely private matters, but are indeed public issues. I suggest that it is necessary to increase knowledge about these issues, decrease the cost to society in human potential, and take long-term action to treat the sexually assaulted and/or suicide attempters. Adequate services and awareness opportunities for both men and women must be available to intervene, treat, and support victims.

Ample resource material is available by and for professionals (and survivors) seeking information on sexual assault. However, no matter how much literature is available on the social problems of suicide attempts and sexual assault, few true-life stories of recovery are available. Therefore, as the author of Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor’s Story, I made public my private journey of recovery. I reveal my struggle as a survivor of sexual assault, including incest (indeed, family members are not strangers.) The reader of Beyond the Tears is privy to the counseling sessions I engaged in after a suicide attempt. By bringing my dark secrets to light, it is my hope that others who have had similar events will know that they are not alone. Readers may also explore their own emotions to open lines of communication, eliminate shame, and experience healing. I also hope that my book promotes understanding of the issues that cause individual suffering and plaque our society. An additional benefit of this book is that any clinician will see how another counselor made a difference in the author’s life.

For information and resources visit RAINN: Rape, Abuse, Incest, National Network

The following may indicate that a child has been molested. However, children do not always demonstrate obvious signs, but may do or say something that hints at the molestation. These signs are not all-inclusive and may have other explanations. Contact a health care provider, therapist, or counselor. Some information is from Center for Missing & Exploited Children

BEHAVIOR CHANGES

• Excessive crying
• Extreme mood swings
• Fearfulness and/or bravado
• Withdrawal and/or rebellion
• A fear of certain places, people or activities

SLEEP DISTURBANCES

• Nightmares
• Bed-wetting
• Fear of going to bed
• Inability to stay asleep
• Desire to sleep during the day

EATING HABITS

• Over or under eating
• Refusing foods once enjoyed

SEXUAL ACTIVITY

• Acting out with inappropriate sexual actions
• Showing an unusual interest in sexual matters

BODY APPEARANCE

• Bruises, rashes, cuts, limping
• Multiple or poorly explained injuries
• Pain, itching, bleeding, fluid or rawness in the private areas

DAILY PERFORMANCE

• Sudden change in grades
• Changes in toilet-training habits
• Sudden change in relationship to school/play mates

TELLING

If a child tells, believe him/her. Children do not have a frame of reference to make it up.

Prepared by Lynn C. Tolson, author of Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor’s Story

Michael Skinner is a folk/rock musician with a message. He delves into his emotional resources to serve as an advocate for victims of child abuse and the mentally ill. Then he fills his songs with heartfelt lyrics and melodies that serve as a voice for others. Mike started his advocacy work after receiving a diagnosis of PTSD, which was no doubt a result of the horrific child abuse he suffered. The debilitating depression derailed him, causing him to lose not only his job at the time, but also friends who did not understand the nature of his condition. Instead of hiding in silence, Mike started speaking out to increase awareness of mental illness and child abuse. He also shares his knowledge and the work of other advocates in his “Surviving Spirit” newsletter. Here is a video of Mike performing “Brush Away Your Tears.” Visit Mike at MSkinnermusic.com. Hopefully you will catch him performing and/or speaking at an event near you! Way to go Mike. You are a hero!

I’ve been asked to testify on an amendment to a Colorado State bill: clarifying the requirement that certain persons report child abuse or neglect (C.R.S. 19-3-304). This will be personal testimony to help clear up an ambiguous section regarding mandatory reporting.

The main concern is this: Should the law require that a mandatory reporter (such as a therapist) report (the perpetrator) when an individual over age 18 reveals abuse and/or neglect?

I had therapy in my teens, twenties, thirties. It was not until I was 43 that I revealed childhood rape, incest, abuse, neglect, and domestic violence. The focus in my therapy until my forties was to keep me alive (I was suicidal), manage PTSD symptoms, and develop healthy coping strategies. At age 43, in the safe confines of counseling sessions with a therapist I trusted, I revealed the perpetrators, one dead, one living. Talk-therapy helped me to take back the power that incest had held over me. Talking freed me enough to begin to experience healing, not only my mind but also my body. I started to find the self that had been stolen by childhood abuse.

Would I reveal the perpetrators if I knew the therapist had to report them and their activities of 3 decades earlier? Or would the threat of law enforcement and court proceedings intimidate me into keeping the silence? Would my therapist lose focus on my immediate needs as a survivor so she could provide legal documents and attend hearings? In those proceedings, all too often the survivor is re-traumatized in our victim-blaming society. Would I lose my self again in guilt, shame, and blame, instead of proceeding on a healing journey?

In my case, I did reveal to my therapist the perpetrator’s relationship to me, but not his name. He (the perpetrator, my brother) had a child the same age I was when he raped me. I confronted him myself, asking him if he was molesting his daughter. Of course, he said “no.”  He knows he “did something” to me, but he claims he does not remember the details. If he was mindless while “molesting” me, how could he know he had not molested his daughter? He lived in another state, and the conflicts of varying state laws complicated any further action. There was no reasonable evidence that demanded reporting. I’d be caught in an interstate war of “he said, she said” and a battle of wits and memory. If I had proof that crimes against a minor were being committed, I would have fought for the safety of others.

This is my individual case, my dilemma, my question of moral duty. My therapist did focus on my healing. I am alive today, busy as an author and advocate. There is so much work to be done in the laws regarding sexual violence.

I’ll testify on behalf of all those victims who do not feel safe enough until adulthood to tell their painful truths. Would you tell if you thought your therapist was forced to report? (rhetorical questions).

Lynn C. Tolson, advocate, Project for TEARS: Telling Everyone About Rape & Suicide

A Private Family Matter by Victor Rivas Rivers

How does a child survive his boyhood with a father who delivers endless emotional, verbal, and physical torture?

This is what the reader learns from Victor Rivas. Born in Cuba, his family immigrated to America before Castro’s rule. Yet Victor did not escape the sadistic dictatorship of his own father. The torture that the father inflicted upon his family is difficult for a reader to process, yet it brings awareness to the tough topic of domestic violence.

The reader learns of a frustrating social system that denied resources to the most vulnerable victims: women and children. When Victor’s mother visits a police station to tell of the abuse she was experiencing, she was told that there was nothing they could do. They told her to call the next time he was beating her! When Victor ran to the police station to show his bruised pubescent body to the officers, they told him there was nothing they could do because it was “a private family matter.”

Victor’s father ruined everything, and stole his son’s right to self-determination. After witnessing abuse upon his mother, his brothers, and his pets, as well as enduring the vicious assaults from his father, Victor runs away from his house-of-horrors. He was safer sleeping in a cemetery. Naturally, he becomes a hostile, hopeless adolescent.

Yet Victor was rescued by seven families, teachers, and coaches. He spent the last years of high school learning to give and receive love. He became an athlete, actor, and advocate.

A review of 300-400 words cannot possibly convey the poignancy of this story. It is well-written, with a sprinkling of enjoyable observations, such as an anecdote about acclimating to Miami in August, and the bug life “spawned by the moisture.” Victor Rivas Rivers also shares his survival lessons as he pushes through his tough assignment.

As an author of a memoir with the same topics, I can identify with the ironic twists and turns of the home-site battlefield, as well as the universal themes of triump over tragedy. As an advocate, I would recommend this book as “a must read” for breaking the silence and cycles of violence and challenging society to promote peace in our homes.

“Footsteps in the Dark”

Mommy says Angel it’s time for bed,

put on your nightgown, and lay down your head.

I’ll finish these dishes, and come tuck you in,

I’ll read you the story of The Fish’s Pink Fins.

I ran up to my bedroom where my dollies live,

put on my nighty, and to each a hug I’d give.

I hear Mommy coming to say her goodnight,

after she reads me a story she’ll turn out my light.

I shudder to think about being left all alone,

I wish I were a little frog that could hide under a stone.

I hear Mommy and her boyfriend talking real loud,

I hope they aren’t fighting about ‘three’s a crowd.’

Finally it’s still, they must be asleep,

I’ve been such a good girl and never uttered a peep.

Thats when I hear his footsteps in the dark,

he enters my room, on my bed he does park.

He tells me to be quiet, that I’m his little dove,

I feel his hands on my body, he says it’s making love.

I remember to this day, the pain, and the sensation,

my childhood stolen, the feeling of degradation.

This offensive behavior went on for years,

until finally at eighteen, I left home in tears.

Why didn’t she save me, instead of turn a blind eye,

I will never forget, or forgive her, until the day I die…

____________________________________________________________

fictional poem by Charleen (Chatty) Micheles: editor, ghostwriter/author

Thank you, Chatty, for submitting this poem to TEARS on behalf of all children who have been abused.