Why Sex Wounds Children - Introduction

Why Three Stories Together?

Some stories are harder for me to tell than others, harder for people to read as well. The three stories I am about to tell you are like this for me; in each of these stories, a woman was sexually assaulted during childhood.

I tell these three stories in the hope that I can give people who have had similar childhood experiences a new, more clear and direct path to healing. I also want to offer those who love people like this a more accurate sense of how they can help.

Why tell all three stories together? Because, despite the similarities in the nature of the wounding events, these three women incurred dramatically different BLocks. More important, by seeing how their BLocks differ, you can gain a lot of insight into how, and why, sexual assaults wound children. Believe me, what actually causes these wounds often has nothing to with what most people would guess the cause to be; the sex.

Before I begin, though, I need to assure you that I will be telling only the details necessary to make my points. What I mean by this is that I have no intention of offering any information beyond the basic story lines. Even so, some people, especially those who tend to picture stories as they read them and those whom have experienced similar events may struggle to stay conscious while reading these stories. After all, stories in which children get hurt are always difficult to read.

If this is you then please be easy on yourself and do the best you can. And remember. My focus here, as always, is to help people to become more able to love.

The Timing of Being Wounded

According to popular thinking, the younger a child is at the time a wound occurs, the more profound the injury. In many instances, this belief is absolutely true. In the case of these stories, however, this idea is not true and in fact, of these three women, the woman who was wounded latest in life got wounded the worst.

How can this be? It all has to do with the timing of when, during the event, the wounding actually occurs. In fact, this timing has an enormous impact on how badly the person will suffer later in life.

What do I mean by, "the timing?" To begin with, please allow me to remind you that the thing which actually wounds people during wounding events is that they experience a simple sequence of three events; [1], they become hyperaware (they enter a trance state); [2], they experience a startling event (they experience an abrupt internal sensory overload); and [3], they have their internal fuses blow (they go into shock.)

The point is, because people get wounded only by experiencing these three events in this exact order, while people are in shock, they can not be psycho-spiritually wounded. This, in fact, is the reason shock exists in the first place. Shock is a protective device which limits the amount of psycho-spiritual damage human beings can incur during painful events. In effect, shock is the equivalent of a system of internal fuses which once blown, prevent further wounding.

Now, before I digress into a theoretical explanation, let me first introduce the women in the stories.

Carol, now in her late forties, was the youngest at the time she was wounded; she was six when it happened to her.

It happened to Debbie, now in her mid twenties, when she was a little older than Carol; Debbie was wounded when she was ten.

And the third woman, Tricia, now in her early fifties, was somewhat older than both these women when she got wounded; she was sixteen when it happened to her.

Six. Ten. Sixteen. Quite different ages. So who got wounded the worst? Common sense would say Carol, the six year old. After all, she was the youngest when it happened.

In truth, though, Tricia's wounds were, by far, the most severe. And despite the fact that Tricia, at sixteen, certainly had far more life skills than either a ten year old or a six year old, these life skills actually contributed to the magnitude of her injuries.

Was this simply a case of that the event in which Tricia got wounded was just that much more violent than the others? Actually, not really. In fact (and please remember to breathe now), what I need to tell you now is that the basic events which these women experienced were in a way quite similar: all three girls were forced by an adult to have intercourse.

Is what I am telling you hard to believe? Admittedly, yes. So how can I be sure that the oldest girl's injuries were more severe than either of the other girls? I would rather you judge this for yourselves. After you read all three stories.