Groomed

It can be hard to understand how abuse can go on for years. It is hard to understand the complexity that creates the environment that sustains such pain, violence and dysfunction. There are studied behaviors that help us understand how it happens. If we want to understand, if we want to help, we can by first learning HOW it happens, then we can learn HOW to recognize it early and WHAT to do to stop it in it's tracks.

The simplest way to start is to think about meeting someone new. Most people put their best side forward. When I meet someone new I don't blurt out all my shortcomings. "Hi, I'm Sandy and I have NO patience when I'm worried!" Nope, I usually make sure I have on some lip gloss and smile as much as I can. We all understand that everybody knows how to show their best and hide their worst. People who are abusive learn this skill really well or they are not great abusers. Abusers who don't learn this skill end up in jail quickly and out of the public domain. So in order for anyone to live amongst us and still be able to be abusive, they learn how to keep their dark side hidden until...

Most people in the community that knew my step dad from a casual perspective would say "He's a great guy". I would smile and nod yes in agreement, but inside I was thinking "you wouldn't say that if you really knew him, he has you fooled!" My mom thought he was a good guy too, enough to marry him and have 3 more daughters with him. How was my mom and the rest of the family groomed? What are the basic steps?

It usually starts with a charming, flood of romance, attention and care. I remember watching my dad use his charm with people. I imagine he worked hard to gain my mom's trust and love. Once that has been achieved, the charm will change into control. Control can be a use of the power dynamic (financial, gender, age, physical, etc). I can look back at my mom's situation and see all of those power dynamics in play. It also helps me see how I had zero chance against him. There are terms that can describe all this behavior in more technical ways, and there are many resources you can look up if you need more information. I'll link a few below for added assistance. For now, I want to focus on recognizing that there is a systematic manipulation that must occur and continue to occur in order for a family to be abused repeatedly and for a sustained period of time. Because of that, there are many injuries that are occurring and chronic dysfunction is created.

I learned early on that I was a target of my step dad in other areas besides the sexual abuse. I didn't understand then that it was all a part of the "grooming process". In order for an abuser to keep control over the situations they are creating, they must create distrust for the victim in their inner circle so if they do complain, they can easily be discredited and not believed. Before I understood this concept, I could describe to you the way that I felt because of that grooming process in our family dynamics. One example of this was as I grew up I knew it was my responsibility to do many of the household chores because I was the oldest girl. I grew up knowing it was my responsibility to take care of my sisters because I was the "second mom". At first, I loved the role. They were adorable and I loved them very much! Then the responsibility became isolating. Looking back, it makes sense. It was classic. One of the key steps in grooming is to create isolation, both physically and emotionally, from those who would protect the victim. What my dad created in our home was a way to create separation between me and my mom and my sisters. I wasn't able to enjoy the same things my sister's enjoyed. I wasn't greeted the same way. I wasn't engaged with the same types of conversations. I was different. At times, I equated that difference to the fact that I was not his "real" daughter, but my mother worked hard to make sure we knew that we were family, there was no such thing as 'half sisters, step father's', etc. Family is family and we needed to understand that. So I tried to push that out of my mind. But there was a clear difference in how he engaged with my sisters and how he engaged with me. One example that stands out clearly for me is that I could see how he reacted at night after dinner. After we would finish eating dinner, my step dad and my sisters would go into the living room and start playing or watching TV. If I would enter the room, he would look at me and say "why aren't you helping your mother? why aren't you cleaning up the kitchen?" It was that same reaction in many areas of our day to day life when he made sure to call me out, to make sure that I was the one causing discomfort, causing the change in a calm environment to a stressful one. Time after time, I was called out as doing something incorrectly: "Why don't you know how do mop the floor correctly? Don't you know how to hold a broom right? That's not the right way to iron, to vacuum. Why are you sitting there when there's work to be done. What do you mean you have eczema, looks like you're allergic to work!" I decided I would stay in the kitchen, regardless if there was nothing for me to do, just to make sure there was peace for the night. I would stand behind the stove in the little nook so I wouldn't be noticed until it was time to go to bed and then I'd go upstairs. I quickly understood that I was the trigger. These types of events are hard to call out because they are not explosive or illicit or large traumatic events. The process of dismantling a victims inner compass and creating mistrust within the family is a slow, subtle assault and we don't notice it is happening. It is death by 1,000 paper cuts. We know the injury itself is small and sometimes unseen. We can feel it, it stings and sometimes there is even a small amount of blood. But if we were to show it to someone, they would shrug it off with a "you'll be fine". If it was a single cut, sure we would. But when it is a patterned, intentional and ongoing assault, the result is a life threatening wound. I felt it then and have over the years, the emotional isolation and the feeling of being "different" than my sisters. I didn't understand the HOW and the WHY of it then, but I do now and want all those who may have been "groomed" in this way to understand it was on purpose. It's not something you are making up or something about you that is broken or wrong. The feeling is real and it was a tactic used to discredit you in the event you talked about the things that were supposed to remain secret. Along with the most important manipulation - the ability to create internal doubt in a victim! If my mother doubted herself, she was more easily controlled. If I doubted myself, I was more likely to stay silent. And it worked and continues to work today on many individuals in many different ways.

This picture was taken in 1974, I was 11 years old. I thought I was so old! I remember when my cousin Michael was born. I lived with my aunt in Moab during the summers after he was born, instead of with my grandparents and helped take care of him. I had already mastered being the 2nd mom to my sisters. I loved all of them and look how cute they were!!!

The family is where we learn how to relate with the outside world. It is where we get to develop our own sense of self and practice what we are learning as we grow. When that is disrupted by the machinations of a predator, it can be devastatingly difficult to untangle. Because I had so much self doubt, it has been difficult for me to understand all the tangled, jumbled internal world I had experienced. My goal was to be a more healthy mom. To raise my boys in a more healthy environment. But my inner world was so very confused. Now I can look back and understand what happened, how it was enabled, who was responsible for it and see a more healthy view of myself. It took quite a long time for me to get to that view. I want to give anyone who has experienced abuse, no matter the classification or type of abuse, permission to lay the burdens you have been carrying at the feet of the abuser. They are not yours to carry, even though you were given them through the manipulation and dysfunction to keep the abuser safe and you silent. Let's make you safe now. Let's help everyone understand the way abusers target, isolate, develop trust and keep secrets, desensitize, and make their behavior seem natural. They warp the family dynamic, the safe spaces, and the sacred relationships. They use our inner goodness against us, our desires to please and be accepted as weapons to control us. But we can recognize them and what they do for what it is and reclaim ourselves as the whole, unbroken, loved children of God we truly are.

Many times, families will find ways to survive and adapt into dysfunctional lives thinking they are functional. It's a part of the "grooming" that allows for boundaries to be crossed and moved again and again until there are no boundaries, no healthy interactions, only survival and coping mechanisms. As we become adults and move into our own lives, if we haven't acquired the appropriate skills in our homes to live healthy, functional lives, we are bound to fumble our way through as we try to learn new ways of being. For me, the first part of unraveling a tangled mess is to acknowledge the thing is tangled! We have to be willing to accept the dysfunction, which means we have to acknowledge that the "good ol' boy" isn't so good after all. We have to let the victims know we see them, believe them and are willing to stand with them as they work to find healing. Denial allows for the dysfunction to continue. Not being willing to "deal with it" allows the dysfunction to continue. It supports a predator and leaves the victim alone in the world with a tangled inner world and self view. That is backwards from what is required but it is exactly the goal of the predator's grooming activities. Make bad things good and good things bad so they can do what they want with impunity. Don't hold me accountable, make the victim the problem. Let's right the ship and bring the good back to good and bad back to bad. Acknowledgment of the abuse assists and gives permission for the survivors to start the task of untangling their inner world.

Notice I used the plural of survivor(S). Everyone in the family is a survivor of grooming and abusive behavior. There might be individuals that are the targets for beatings or sexual assaults, but every person in the family is affected by the dysfunction. If we all are learning how to relate to one another and develop our own sense of the world, then we are all being impacted by the craziness going on. Everyone in the family would benefit from some detangling efforts.

So how can we complete the detangling? In my Functional Nutrition school we are taught 3 tiers to nutritional mastery and I like to think of untangling this mess in a similar way. The 3 tiers are:

1. Clear the muddy waters

   1. You must stop dumping toxic substances into your mind, your body, your thoughts. You have to remove yourself from the abuse. You must start putting helpful, healing thoughts, people, foods, surroundings into your life. If you need help, reach out! Keep reaching out until you find the support and the help you need to clear what has been made muddy.

2. Deficiency to Sufficiency

   1. What in your life is deficient? Do you need counseling, do you need spiritual assistance, do you financial assistance, reach out for all the things that are deficient in your life. We need to add the vitamins and minerals into our diet to make sure our body can run. Just as with our nutritional needs, we need to focus on our emotional, financial, educations aspects of our lives. You deserve all of the areas of your life to reach levels of sufficiency. There are people who can help you in each area. I will help you start, if you need me.

3. Dismantle Dysfunction

   1. Once we have completed tier 1 and tier 2, we will see more clearly what dysfunction is left that we must dismantle. What areas of our thinking needs adjustments? Do we have PTSD? Step by step we can start to dismantle the learned dysfunction and learn more functional ways to not only heal but to expand the joy and prosperity in our lives!

My goal with this conversation is to tell you if you have experienced abuse - I hear you, I believe you and I understand some of what you might be going through. I also want you to know there is a way to find healing, joy and purpose for your life. If you have never been a part of an abusive situation, I'm so grateful. What I ask of you is to keep your eyes and hearts open to those around you that might be vulnerable to someone. Look for the signs predators use and intervene as quickly as you can. If you don't know what do to, reach out to someone that does and get the expert guidance you would want for your own loved ones and yourself. The sooner we intervene, the sooner the damage can stop and the quicker healing can begin.

Resources:

Call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.

https://www.rainn.org/news/grooming-know-warning-signs