Survivorship
The below words from Alisa struck a deep, intimate chord. When I spoke openly about my experience, friends who I had considered lifelong family reacted in deeply hurtful ways. This piece helps me make sense of that.
"To be clear, their denial hurts you, so deeply. And it’s never okay that they choose to live in denial to protect themselves from the truth over supporting you. But the reason why they do this has actually nothing to do with you. There are no words you could’ve chosen differently, no proof you could have magically had, nothing you could’ve done that would’ve influenced their behavior right now. Trust me, I’ve seen this so many times in my own life but in thousands of other survivors' lives. We can never under-estimate the power of denial by our families to selfishly protect themselves from feelings of guilt, shame and responsibility.
When I have dealt with unsupportive family members, I have found it helpful to sometimes step away and ask myself, 'What motivations do they have to deny my truth?' In order to help me remember that this has to do with their bullshit, not mine. Here are some of the answers to that question I’ve had over the years:
They don’t want to face their own complicity. They are denying my truth because then it means they’ve failed to protect me as the responsible adult in my life, and that reality would shatter their own world view and how they understand themselves as a parent/uncle/grandparent etc. So, to protect themselves from that guilt, they choose not to believe my truth.
They are survivors of abuse and this is how they cope. They are denying my truth because they, themselves, may be survivors of abuse either from the same abuser as me, or from someone else in their childhood. Their way of coping with being a survivor is to repress everything. By me living my truth out loud, it is in conflict with the way they’ve figured out how to survive, which is to keep everything bottled in, stay silent, and never speak of any abuse. It doesn’t make it okay for them to do this, but it is helpful to see it isn’t about us.
They are denying my truth because they would rather protect the status-quo than protect me. If they believe me, then they have to accept that a family member abused their own child. Then they may feel compelled to then divorce from that person, or not be around them anymore, and shift the structure of the family. It is always easier to protect the status quo than to protect us.
They’ve lied to themselves. They are denying my truth because they’ve actually truly persuaded themselves this never happened, and they have grown to actually believe that. This one is reserved for my father. I think he genuinely believes he didn’t do this to me. Denial to protect oneself from guilt and shame is insanely powerful.
None of these reasons are acceptable. We can understand why they deny our truth, but understanding never means their actions are okay. [...] I want to encourage all of us to ask ourselves, 'Whose validation do we want?' and 'Whose validation do we need?'"
-- Alisa, Healing Honestly
