Word: incest
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Eventually many incest survivors will recover at least some memories of their trauma. Generally the flashbacks begin only after the victims reach their 30s, when they are either strong enough or safe enough to tolerate the pain. The most common memory triggers include learning about someone else's abuse, seeing children attain the same age at which one's own abuse occurred and undergoing therapy or hearing about the abuser's death...
Even if they remember the incest, survivors usually try at first to minimize the damage by saying, "It only lasted two years," or "It's only my brother." Many times they will find a great deal of support in this denial from other members of their family, their spouses or their friends, who do not . want to talk about incest any more than the victims do. Men are particularly adept at trying to downplay the effects of abuse. "It was just supposed to be part of growing up," says Harold Watson, 38, an artist in New York City...
Some survivors transform themselves from victims to activists. Until Patti and Kelvin Barton of Everett, Wash., lobbied their state legislature three years ago to enact a new law, it was almost impossible for anyone to bring civil charges of childhood sexual abuse after the victim turned 21. Because many incest survivors, like Patti, do not even realize their childhood experiences until they are well into adulthood, they had few legal options against their abusers. The Washington law now allows people three years to bring suit after the discovery of either the abuse or the injury it caused. A dozen other...
Crucial to recovery is the act of breaking the silence. "It's very important for the survivor to tell at least one other person," says Laura Davis, co-author of The Courage to Heal, the text used most often by incest survivors attempting to recover. "They don't have to tell the whole world if they don't want to." But by speaking out even a little, survivors hope they can break the cycle of shame and prevent the next generation from suffering...
...survivor of incest long past. Somehow it is all too easy to forget those things that traumatized the soul. The phantom woman in the night reminds me. Everything I do in life revolves around working out the problems created by that woman in the night who long ago terrorized an innocent child...