I found this a very moving video – and SO important.
I’m interviewing men who have experienced abuse at the moment and this video really brings home that it can happen to anyone, is so destructive – and that we need to work together to end it.
#CSE
It’s not just fight or flight…
Recently a group of men who gang raped a woman in Pamplona had their conviction reduced from rape to sexual assault, despite the fact that they raped their victim. There is no question about this as they filmed it on their phones. The reason why their convictions were downgraded was because the victim didn’t fight, but was ‘passive or neutral’ according to the police reports. This has lead to many demonstrations and anger over this apparent judgement of the victims behaviour.
It also ignores the fact that there is another response to violent attack than fight or flight – there is also freeze or ‘tonic immobility’ to give it its formal name. Ignoring, for now, the fact that this victim blaming attitude goes right back at least as far as the Bible (read Deuteronomy 22:23-27) let’s look at the evidence for this third reaction to fear and violence.
Like in animals there is evidence that humans can sometimes freeze when faced with danger, literally be unable to move. Moller (2017) et al, interviewed 298 women who had been victims of a sexual assault. Of those 70% reported significant tonic immobility and 48% reported extreme tonic immobility – so nearly half could not move at all during the assault. They also found that the women who had experienced this were more likely to develop c-PTSD and/or severe depression.
So it looks as though the ‘freeze’ reflex is very common and I’d argue it may even be more common in children where, even more so than adults, fight or flight may not be options.
Going back to the Pamplona case it did inspire the nuns of Hondarribia to send out the following message.
Amen.
References
Möller, A., Söndergaard, H.P. & Helström, L., 2017. Tonic immobility during sexual assault – a common reaction predicting post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 96(8), pp.932–938.
Research Update April 2018. Victorian government corruption and Catholic Saints
I’m right in the middle of fieldwork at the moment, which means that I am arranging interviews and then actually doing them. The next job is transcribing them, typing out everything that was said, which takes much longer than you’d think! I’m also applying to talk at some conferences and I’m going to submit an abstract to a journal to see if I can get the research published. If accepted the article wouldn’t be published until next year so you have to start planning ahead really early on!
I’ve just done a presentation for the Sheffield Gender History group about my PhD side project. As part of background reading about laws relating to childhood sexual abuse I read about the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which aimed to raise the age of consent to 16 for girls. The author of the paper, Gorham, commented that MPs were reluctant to pass this law because they might fall foul of it themselves, as many visited brothels owned by a woman called Mrs Jeffries. So I’ve have been investigating Mrs Jeffries and her connections to MPs and other VIPs of 1885. This is what my talk was about and I’m hoping to turn it into an article in due course.
Another talk, which I’m due to give in June at a Gendered Emotions in History conference, is about the different emotions reported by male and female participants in my survey and if there are any parallels between them and historical examples. I’ve been reading about Francesca Bussa, who was married at 12 or 13 in 1397 and after the wedding night refused to speak or eat. She only recovered after being inspired to do good works but continued to punish herself shockingly throughout her life; eating only 1 meal a day, whipping and torturing herself. She cut off her own hair and complained of being tormented by demons. She also did some amazing things – performed miracles, opened her home to the sick and founded a monastery for women. In the end she was canonised and is now known as Saint Frances. I don’t want to minimise her significance to Catholics but there is a clear link between her early marriage and the onset of symptoms of self harm. Many female participants in my research have described a sense of disconnection between the body and mind, which I think has parallels with the story of Saint Frances.
As you can probably tell I am doing lots of things at the moment! Luckily the PhD gives you time to explore different avenues and decide which are the most fruitful.
References
Bell, R.M., 1985. Holy Anorexia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gorham, D., 1978. The “Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” Re-examined: Child Prostitution and the Idea of Childhood in Late-Victorian England. Victorian Studies, 21(3), pp.353–379.
January 2018 Research Update
I wanted to keep everyone up to date as to where I am in my research. The survey is going to close on the 1st of February, so if you do want to fill it in now is the time. As of now I’ve had 133 responses and I’m in the process of analysing these. My next step is to develop questions and start interviews. I really want to thank everyone who has taken the time to fill in the survey. Your responses have been fascinating and so helpful.
About Interviews
88 people have volunteered for interviews, which is 66% of people who filled in the survey. That’s an amazing response and I’m so grateful. It shows me that people do want to talk about this subject and contribute to positive steps forward for all victims and survivors.
Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to interview everyone who has volunteered as I simply cannot do justice to that many interviews in the time that I have. I am aiming to do about 25 interviews and will be contacting people in February to see if they are still interested. If you are no longer interested, that’s absolutely fine. The email will have the subject title ‘Survey Response.’
As people have responded from around the world I will offer interviews via Skype, Messenger, email, telephone or face to face (if near to Sheffield, UK) – it will be the interviewee’s choice, not mine. All verbal interviews will be recorded, with your permission, to ensure that I can report your opinions and experiences correctly. All interviews will be anonymous. I will be using pseudonyms for contributors so you will get the opportunity to choose yours, if you want to.
It’s worth stating again that I do not want to focus interviews on the abuse people have experienced but the recovery journey afterwards. There may be specific things mentioned in survey responses that I’d like to hear more about, which I will mention in my email. You can then choose if you want to talk about them or not.
I’m so pleased at the success of my research so far and I will do my best to do justice to the information you have shared with me.
Do the Abused become Abusers?
Short answer: Not in general, no. Long answer follows below.
Most studies into offending get their data by asking child abuse offenders if they experienced sexual abuse as children (CSA), with many reporting that they did. It has been pointed out that their word is not necessarily reliable and they may have other reasons for stating this.
Not many studies look at abuse victims and survivors in general. A recent Dutch study by de Jong and Dennison (2017) looked at the history of offending amongst 943 child abuse victims, comparing them with 1439 of their siblings, over a 30 year period. They also compared these with a control group of 645 randomly chosen people. So this is not a small scale study.
They found that victims of CSA are at a higher risk of being convicted of a crime, in general, than the control group. Looking at child abuse convictions specifically they found that some CSA victims did have higher rates of convictions but so did their (non victim?) siblings.
What does that mean? It suggests that it is the family environment and experiences, or even genetics, that creates offenders, not the experience of CSA. A question here is whether the siblings were also abused but their abuse was not part of the original court case. de Jong and Dennison looked again at the data excluding convictions for incest and found higher rates of violent offending, traffic crimes and drugs offences for victims but again no higher rates of CSA offending.
If you look at it by gender they found a small but not statistically significant (so it could just be by chance) rise in CSA offences in women who were victims of CSA and no rise in offences by men who had experienced CSA. This last point is very interesting as the majority of convicted abusers are men but there is no evidence, in this study, that abuse creates abusers.
What this study also highlights are the higher risks of criminal behaviour for people who have experienced CSA and this is important too. I believe this is proof that we need better support and information for victims and survivors to help them in their recovery. Society in general will benefit, from reduced crime rates and happier people, as well as the individual themselves.
REFERENCES:
de Jong, R and Dennison,S (2017) Recorded offending among child sexual abuse victims: A 30-year follow-up. Child Abuse & Neglect 72, 75-84.
December 2017 Research Update
I thought it was time that I update you all on how the research is going. I’ve had 79 responses to the survey so far. Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to fill it in. There are responses from people of different ethnicities, abilities and ages (from 18-70+). The majority live in the UK but there are responses from all over the world. Most of the responses are from women (86%) with 14% from men.
There are themes coming out regarding recovering from abuse and I’m going to explore them further through interviews. So many people have offered to take part in interviews (over half). Thank you so much! I’m not going to be able to interview everyone but I will try to talk to as many people as I can. I will contact people in the New Year to arrange these interviews, which can be face to face or by phone, skype, email or messenger.
I wanted to feedback to everyone about two themes that have come out strongly in your responses, as they don’t cost much and are available to most people. If you want to try them please do. A few people have said that these things did not help them so be aware that they may not work for you.
There are many comments regarding the positive effects of creativity, in any form, on recovering. Examples people have given so far include: drawing, painting, writing, poetry, music, crafts, dance, gardening and sewing.
There are also lots of people saying that physical activity, particularly yoga, is helpful. There are free YouTube yoga videos; examples include Yoga with Adrienne (who has created this Wheelchair Yoga video), Yoga for Men and Body Positive Yoga. I’m going to do some yoga and crafts over the holidays.
If you haven’t yet taken part, and want to, the survey can be found here. I’m going to keep it open for another few months and I’ll keep updating the website with information as I get it. If you try yoga or something creative I’d love to hear how you get on. You can comment below, fill in the survey or email me.
Thanks once again to everyone who has filled in the survey, shared it or is interested in the research.
Recovery from Trauma – the Body Keeps the Score
I’m in The Hague for the next few days at the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN) conference. There have been lots of interesting papers so far but I was inspired to blog about two sessions today from Bessel Van de Kolk because it’s all about the effects of trauma on the brain and how to recover from it – so exactly what I am interested in.
People’s normal response to a traumatic incident, he used the example of the twin towers attack on 9/11, is to run away and specifically run home. This is because running is a very effective strategy when you are in danger and home is a safe place.
The picture here was drawn by a 5 year old boy who was involved in 9/11. He drew this the day after, when he had escaped to his safe home. It shows the towers, falling people and at the top right a fireball. What touched me is that the black circle in the bottom of the picture is apparently a trampoline to help the people falling. It shows the inherent goodness and optimism of kids in my opinion.
But what happens when you cannot run, because you are prevented from escape? Also what happens if home is not safe? He said that in one study adults were asked if they felt safe with anyone as a child. A large percentage (didn’t write it down but I think it was around 45%) said they did not.
So this is where PTSD and other traumatic responses come in. Without the ability to escape and/or a safe person or place to help the child stays in a panic state into adulthood, which they do not have the ability to process. He describes it as being stuck with a broken alarm system – either overreacting or under reacting to events.
This panic state is either numbed emotionally, expressed explosively or dulled through behaviour that can be harmful long term (drink, drugs etc). Bessel argues that the very first thing a person who has been abused needs to learn is how to calm down in a safe, healthy way.
Apparently he asked Nelson Mandela how he stayed so calm when in prison. Mandela said it was boxing – because it helped him become aware of his body. Bessel van de Kolk recommends yoga, mindfulness, tai chi – anything involving movement and mindfulness.
Bessel has written a book about this ‘The Body Keeps the Score‘ which is very good. I realised that I had misunderstood what PTSD was. I had thought it was like on tv or the movies where a Vietnam vet is still hallucinating being in a war zone despite being at home. Instead complex PTSD can involve avoiding anything that reminds the person of their abuser(s) and can also involve using coping strategies (like drink or drugs) to reduce anxiety. ACT therapy is recommended as a useful treatment. It involves mindfulness and accepting that you will always have strong feelings about being abused and that trying to deny them actually causes problems. It’s an approach that makes sense (to me anyway).
So there’s a number of things you can try here if you are struggling:
1. Get tested for complex PTSD by your GP – The most important one I think!
2. Mindfulness
3. Tai chi
4. Martial arts
5. Yoga
6. Read any books by Russ Harris (who designed ACT therapy). They have stupid titles in my opinion but are useful books.
7. Get ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel Van De Kolk.
