Imagine a quiet, blue lake on a calm day, a light breeze blowing and the birds cheerfully chirping in the nearby trees. It is an ordinary day in the life of the lake, with a gentle rise and fall of the water at the shore; nature takes its course. After a while someone standing on the shore catches our eye. He has been on the beach and walks quietly and inconspicuously along the path.
But this time something is different; he picks up a stone and throws it into the lake. It lands in the middle of the lake and sinks quickly to the bottom. It happened so fast that all you can still see is the rippling of the waves on the surface. Soon the water becomes calm again – for someone who was not there when the stone was thrown, it is as if it never happened. It looks as if that stone never dipped into the surface of the lake, but below the stone lies for a long, long time. And whenever a storm agitates the lake, the stone on the bottom is stirred up and brings past events to the surface. |
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Now imagine a child, a boy or a girl, it does not matter. The children are playing at the shore, as children do, playing make-believe games or acting out the victory of their team in the final. They do not know how long they have been playing, but it cannot have been very long because Mum always calls them if they are away too long. They notice someone nearby watching them; they have seen him before, but they do not know his name. |
Dad knows him. They once went to a football match with him, and on the way home he bought the child sweets, and Dad said he was a nice man because he is so kind. The man goes over to the child and talks to him for a while. He gives the child a child-friendly reason to go with him, and the child goes. Of course the child knows not to go off with strangers, but this man is not a stranger, he knows Daddy. What happens now will have serious consequences for the child’s whole life, because the man sexually abuses the child.
The lake is an image of the child, the paedophile is the stranger on the shore and the abuse is the stone that lies forever on the bottom of the lake, or in this case in the child’s soul. As the child grows up, it constantly has the feeling that something is wrong. It may remember what happened that afternoon or it may not. Only years later can there be a retrospective, and suddenly it remembers again what happened that day. It does not matter whether it happened only once or continued over years. The paedophile may have convinced the child to keep what happened a secret, or the child may have gone home and told its parents straight away.
Whatever the details, the stone now lies deep in the child’s soul and ensures that difficult days lie ahead. As the child matures, the effects of the abuse come to the surface. Everyone affected by sexual abuse reacts differently, but mostly there is anger, hatred, denial, repression, shock, grief and secrecy. The feelings the victim goes through range from emotional numbness, disbelief, fear, humiliation, shame and guilt. These are only some of the feelings that appear in the healing process of abuse victims. Each of these emotions is one of the waves that appeared on the surface of the lake when the stone fell into the water.
There are support centres for abuse victims (Rape Crisis networks) worldwide. At the Rape Crisis centre in Sligo in North‑West Ireland it says, “the pain of having been sexually abused can have serious consequences into adulthood. It can affect self-esteem, confidence and the ability to trust others. Often victims feel they do not deserve to be loved or to be happy. They consider themselves ‘bad’ or blame themselves, and this can lead to excessive dependency in relationships or to alcohol or drug misuse to dull the pain.”
Often adults who were abused as children have nightmares or flashbacks. Many just want to cope with their lives and leave the past behind. Life events such as a new relationship, a baby, the death of a loved one or reports of sexual abuse in the media often trigger painful emotions and memories of past abuse.
All homeopaths should know these counselling services for abuse victims and refer their patients to these advisers when necessary; these advisers have specific training in the field of abuse and can be a great help to the victims.
Lack of trust can be a hard hurdle for victims to overcome, affecting many areas of their lives, especially their relationships. Who can they tell? How do they tell them? Will they be believed? Will the person they confided in tell someone else? Finding someone they can trust and tell everything to is a huge undertaking for victims because they do not know how others will react.
Intimacy in relationships can also be lost, which is very painful. The experience of abuse can lead to promiscuity or may cause sufferers to avoid closeness. The memory of the abuse and the emotional confusion can be so painful that avoiding any intimacy seems easier than confronting the memories and injuries of the past that might be brought to the surface. Such feelings can lead to the breakdown of relationships, leaving victims wondering why they have problems with closeness and cannot cope in a relationship; they may even question their sexuality.
It is a vicious circle for victims whose lives are affected by the abuse in many ways. The “lucky” ones are those who have recognised that the abuse happened and that they are badly affected by it. The victims who have not yet realised this are in an even worse position. They are like the water of this lake, feeling restless, uneasy and colourless, less attractive to others, burdened with a disturbing stone lying in the depths of their soul that stirs up mud and filth unbidden.
As homeopaths we must be aware that at any time one of these victims may pick up the phone and ask us for an appointment. They may or may not know what lies behind their health problems, but perhaps during the case taking they will reveal a secret that has been guarded in their soul for a long time – perhaps for years – and the homeopath may be the first person, apart from the child abuser, to learn something about the abuse. This places the homeopath in a privileged position. They have their case-taking skills, the time, and above all the means to set the healing process in motion for the patient. |
