Child Abuse Recovery Treatment: Embracing Emotions & Challenging Gender Stereotypes
Taking away the stigma of abuse and trauma by talking openly about it.
Let us all start the tough conversations about being traumatized, emotionally neglected, or abused in some way—emotionally, sexually, physically, verbally, financially, or spiritually—to create CHANGE and to de-stigmatize these words and experiences. There is so much shame related to past trauma and abuse. I know how scary it can be to talk about it, so never feel rushed into opening up about this. Always seek professional help from a licensed therapist or counselor if you have never processed your traumatic childhood experiences.
For this blog post, I will openly communicate about it because once we are okay with all of what we have experienced, and we feel more “ambulatory” after having some therapy, talking about it, and moving forward from it through our recovery process can only help others to heal and come along, too. And this is what I want for all of us. Child abuse recovery treatment requires us to challenge long-standing gender stereotypes and embrace the full range of emotions experienced by survivors. By creating a safe environment where boys can freely express their tears and girls can openly express their anger, we empower them to heal and reclaim their emotional well-being. My trauma coaching is about moving forward after processing the old trauma—into freedom, self-love, and joy. We unglue from the old to allow the new, beautiful energy to come in.
We live in an insidiously emotionally abusive world, so none of us is immune to it. Emotional and verbal abuse is rampant, and we hardly even notice. Everyone notices physical abuse. That is pretty overt. While secretive and inconspicuous, sexual abuse is being discussed and outed more and more now, too. But the subtleties of emotional abuse are not easily detected when all of us are victims and perpetrators of it. We take for granted statements like, "If you loved me, then you would….” This is an emotionally manipulative statement, and people do this a lot to maintain control and to try to avoid being abandoned by someone they claim to love. I say it’s a “claim” that they love this person because true love is not suffocating or manipulative. True love does not possess, act jealous, or control how someone behaves. True love is free, non-judgmental, and accepting of what is. If you do not like what your partner is doing and they do not want to compromise or stop abusing you and get on the same page as you, then you can choose to change the relationship if you’d like. You can choose to walk away. But controlling and manipulating someone, no matter how disrespectful, dismissive, or abusive they might be, is not loving them or yourself, for that matter.
Embarrassingly, I bet many of us can admit that we have sometimes said this or something like it quietly to ourselves or others. I know I have. When I didn’t have enough self-love and healing on board, I acted this way—more often than I want to admit, I bet! The thing is that it’s not our fault that we think this kind of thought process is normal because It IS normal in a world that is based on codependency, emotional unavailability, and emotional and verbal abuse. After all, we feel such a deep need to connect with others, protect our relationships, and self-protect based on times in the past when love has hurt us deeply. We believe that this will make us feel empowered and strong so that we won’t be "played,” “controlled,” or "duped" ever again, right? "No one is going to take advantage of me again! No way!"
You can always start child abuse recovery treatment at any age. Inner work is a timeless investment.
If we choose to do the inner work, we don't ever have to be manipulated or manipulate others again. When we do the inner work, no one can really ever truly make us "feel" abandoned or rejected again—even if they leave or call us names or betray our trust. We get to decide how we react and how personally we take anyone’s behavior once we are healed and love ourselves. Traditional gender norms often stifle emotional expression, particularly for boys and girls who have experienced child abuse. Through child abuse recovery treatment, we aim to break these stereotypes and create a supportive space where survivors are encouraged to embrace their tears and anger as valid and essential components of their healing journey. This is the beauty of loving ourselves after trauma and abuse. We get to choose. We are free if we want to be, too.
Trauma and abuse instill toxic and pervasive shame, which is a master emotion that binds with other feelings such as fear, sadness, anger, and even joy. Toxic shame holds these feelings hostage so that they never have to come out and "ruin" someone else's day. For many of us, shame was a protector when we were children. It kept us from being punished or abused more by making us “behave,” not be “too emotional,” and “go along to get along.”
“Don’t make people mad or upset with you by expressing your anger after they hit or called you names” is something that shame and, later, the inner critic (or inner bully as I call it) tells us to keep us small, hidden, and following the family rules and mottos to survive in the dysfunctional home. You may have been told, “Stop your crying, or I’ll give you something to REALLY cry about!”
Tears and anger were never allowed in the abusive home. Sometimes laughter was punished, too, which is why shame also binds and holds down joy. Have you ever noticed that some people can’t let themselves laugh out loud? A belly laugh that would be so healing and fun is squashed by shame. Telling the “truth” in this emotional way was forbidden because then the abusers had to feel their own shame from their wrongdoing, which would not work for THEM. Shame for feeling shame feels awful, and taking responsibility and accountability for harming their loved ones was unacceptable because then they’d have to feel that all-encompassing shame. Not good for an abuser. If they don’t face their shame, they can live under the delusion that they have caused no harm, and they can project their wrong-doing onto their victim and justify their abusive behavior as something the victim “asked for” or “deserved.”
Because of this, trauma survivors learn to self-abandon—leave their feelings bottled up and ignored to appease and contort to the abuser’s agenda. This is called Fawning and is one of the Four F’s (fight, flight, freeze, and fawn) of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). It is a stress response that the nervous system uses to handle the trauma. Once your body is groomed and becomes used to reacting to trauma and life in this way, is it any wonder that a trauma survivor will find a partner just like Mom or Dad to live unhappily ever after with? Abusive love partners who feel like “home” to the trauma survivor’s body feel safe (in an unhealthy way, of course, but your body does not realize this). Then, as you can imagine, the cycle of abuse continues with the next generation.
The good news is that, as adults, we no longer need toxic shame running our lives. Now, those feelings from the past that have been trapped and ignored are allowed to come out of hiding and out of being considered "dangerous," "dark," "inconvenient," "weak," or "too vulnerable." There is no need to self-abandon anymore. We are safe, and no one can hurt us again if we decide to protect ourselves now. We all feel empty and disconnected when we can never feel our painful feelings. This locks us into suffering and disconnects us from our hearts and from loving ourselves and others.
Bringing anything dark out into the light makes it shrink and have less power over us—not more. After all, the darkness cannot survive in the light.
My life purpose is to discuss the hard things that feel heavy and make us all feel kind of uncomfortable. But I think this is necessary. I hate seeing men not allowed to cry and women not allowed to feel anger about how they have been treated as children and, later, as adults. I hate how women and men cannot better work together to support and truly love each other and that relationships have so much competition and disharmony. From a young age, we are taught to suppress the feelings that humans are supposed to feel.
To not be allowed to cry as a little boy who loses his favorite stuffed animal or toy is like cutting off his arm or, better yet, carving out his heart, which he needs in order to live. He needs to feel in order to be healthy and well-adjusted. He is not being "too weak" or "girly" when he can express his sadness at the moment. When he gets the message repeatedly that he is being stupid for crying, he becomes cut off from his sadness and goes into anger or into shut-down mode instead. He detaches from truly loving himself, let alone a woman, and can easily become non-committal and hide from both her and himself, leading to addictive behaviors, depression, rage, abuse, cheating, secrets, and lies. Health issues caused by stress also arise from trapped and ignored emotions, which are energy that needs to be in movement. So, which one seems healthier and less dangerous: crying or bottling it up?
We cannot feel true, authentic happiness unless we allow ourselves to feel our true, authentic sadness.
When we are allowed to cry as needed as children, we have less to cry about as adults. This is because when allowed to get it off our chests as children, it takes less time and there is less emotional energy stored to get out of our bodies later. We can cry and feel sad for however long we need to without judging ourselves and then move on, much like children do when they fall five inches to the ground and cry huge tears in order to get some attention and love.
Once we validate them, their tears suddenly disappear, and they walk off to play again. When they aren't judged for crying over something small like this, they learn that tears are healing and connecting, not shameful. They move through their sadness FASTER and start living, playing, and having fun. When this is what they learn is acceptable, they are less inclined to self-abandon or ignore themselves then or later on. They take their feelings seriously and don’t dismiss or discount themselves.
When these feelings are allowed to be felt and expressed in a healthy and constructive way, you come into surrender and flow. Life becomes easier and happier. You have inner peace and joy. And, you are less likely to abuse others through dismissiveness, silent treatment, name-calling, punching, discounting, condescension, or in other demeaning and disrespectful ways.
We have no reason to mistreat others if we love ourselves first and fully.
In my coaching practice, I am witnessing men opening up and allowing feelings they were conditioned to believe were not okay to feel, talk about, or express. They feared that if they started to let the tears flow, they'd cry forever or that by feeling their anger, they would end up burning down someone's home or doing something equally violent or destructive. They previously thought that people would think less of them, that they were weak, or that women would not think they were masculine. However, they realize that feeling their pain calms them down instead of making them more agitated. This is creating new opportunities in their lives. Their self-doubts and insecurities are leaving as they truly have their own backs and show compassion toward themselves. Feeling these things does the opposite of wanting to destroy others. It connects you with your heart and makes you feel safe and calm. These men are feeling the neutrality that is peace and self-love.
Women I work with are finally feeling their anger and taking back their power by creating healthy boundaries after many years of feeling like their needs and desires were not respected. They had to be a doormat to keep the "peace." They are starting to say, "I MATTER, “ holding their men accountable for their poor behaviors. These women are asking their men to step up their game. And for some of these women, their men ARE doing it! In child abuse recovery treatment, it is essential to normalize the expression of emotions such as tears for boys and anger for girls. By challenging societal expectations and providing a nurturing environment, we empower survivors to honor their emotional experiences, ultimately fostering healing, resilience, and a greater sense of self-acceptance.
As a result of their past trauma or abuse, there are still many men who have not allowed themselves to feel. They choose to stay disconnected from their true pain, which allows them to be distant, and emotionally unavailable, and to carry on the abuse that stems from bottled-up anger, fear, sadness, and shame. These men often are not ready to be in harmony and have an equal relationship with women. For some women, their inability to have compassion and softness for themselves due to their past trauma, emotional neglect, and abuse allows them to abuse, control and punish men as well as to laugh at them for their tears, so this can be a realistic fear men have about women. It is hard to change generations of patterning, toxic shame, and abuse, but I know it is happening now—even if evolution is slow. The good news is that we all do our best at any given time.
I love seeing this change, however! It brings tears of joy to my eyes when I see my clients taking brave action and creating real change in their emotional selves. They are becoming free! As I walk this journey alongside my clients, I am learning that the world is a better place when we cooperate and do things from love instead of fear. Being empowered is not about holding others down with control, manipulation, and abuse. It is about honoring ourselves and each other for where we are all at in life--accepting and appreciating our and others’ deepest feelings, and strengths, and tolerating our differences instead of judging one another as less than. Feeling our feelings and releasing past shame helps with this process.
These are hard things to discuss, but the more we can courageously open up to these conversations, the more we can heal the darkness that was inadvertently placed inside of us, and that prevails in this world so that the light can diminish the darkness for good.
