Betrayal of Innocence: Incest and Its Devastation; Revised Edition

This has been the most amazing and eye opening book for me. I have also shared it with my therapist. My abuse was by my father so the father-daughter incest is of most interest to me. I have learned all of the below from this book!!!It explains how and why incest occurs. It describes how the child perceives the event, the personality of an abuser, and the dynamics of abuse and the incestuous family. It talks about the aftereffects, diagnosis (PTSD) and treatment. We often have traumatic reenactment as we become sexual in outside relationships. We are either disconnected sexually from our bodies or we act out sexually with multiple, often random partners.Being sexual or doing things for others was the only way I felt I was of any value to anyone else. Why else would they love me if I didn't service them? How else was I of any intrinsic value? I felt power, love and acceptance when I sexually pleased a man. This became my goal in relationships and was how I attracted men. I have confused love, guilt and sex and seen myself as a sexual object.We must have the understanding of the child's reality, understand that it confounds and contradicts adult logic. Incest abuse is a process with five stages. The child usually learns to accept and accommodate and basic trust is violated. This causes fundamental trust issues for the victim for the rest of his/her life. The family is often enmeshed with lack of appropriate boundaries and role reversals where the child often becomes the significant other to the abuser.To understand why children blame themselves look only at the child's perception of reality and their defense systems. To a young child, adults, especially parents, are the embodiment of all wisdom and goodness. The child must believe the parent is good because the child is totally helpless and dependent upon the parent. To believe, even for a moment, that a trusted adult is bad would be terrifying and overwhelming. THEREFORE, IF SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS, THE CHILD AUTOMATICALLY BELIEVES IT IS BECAUSE HE/SHE IS BAD!!! Any other belief causes too much anxiety. Self blame is a powerful defense mechanism for the child. Without it the child would feel unbearable feelings of panic and terror.The problem is that while this defense is an important survival tool for the young child, victims often take it along with them into their adult lives. They forget they are no longer defenseless and helpless and continue to feel and believe exactly as they did as children. "IF I FEEL BAD, I AM BAD." This is what I am still working on today. I have felt the three D's of incest: Dirty, Damaged and Different. I have felt everyone else is more deserving than I am. I have tried continued self punishment to try to cleanse away the sins I never committed.HOWEVER, INCEST IS NOT ABOUT SEX!!! IT IS ABOUT PURSUING POWER OR VALIDATION. There seem to be two powerful forces at work inside the large majority of incest aggressors. The first is an almost insatiable need for unconditional love and adoration. There is something terribly engaging about the way that a child can love. No adult relationship is free from conflict or criticism, but children love totally without judgment. This can be a powerful aphrodisiac for a man who, no matter how powerful or competent he may appear to the outside world, carries within him deep feelings of inadequacy. Another type of aggressor defends against his own feelings of inadequacy by gaining power and control over a helpless, dependent child.It helped me to put the blame and responsibility back on my abuser instead of myself. It explained to me why my family has reacted with denial and a desire for suppression. The role and power of the abuser and family loyalty determine how the family will react. Some members have contracts of silence with the abuser. Many family members will look to suppress it or minimize it. The mother is most often a codependent enabler. Denial is what makes incest abuse a generational problem.It has allowed me to understand why I feel bad when I have bad feelings. It has explained to me why I have made bad life decisions and shown self destructive behaviors. I felt it was my fault. I continue to want to act out so that I can feel justified in my guilt and be in my comfort zone of shame and blame once again.I attempted to be good, both to deal with my guilt and to earn the love and acceptance I so desperately craved. I received special attention from my father and that is what kept me quiet and guilt ridden. I became my father's lover as my mother was distant and disconnected from him.My bed and home were never safe. I had and still have constant nightmares, night terrors as I call them. I often "played possum", dissociated and pretended nothing was going on. I had a hard time often determining if something really happened or it was a dream. I felt powerless. I tried to gain control in other ways through addictions, such as my eating disorder. I developed OCD and an anxiety disorder. I was constantly afraid and felt like I was dodging bullets.I idolized my father and always painted him as the "romanticized" version of the father that I always wanted. He had to be a loving man so I must be the bad one that was getting what I deserved. This caused self loathing. I hated my body and myself. I tried to kill both multiple times.Secrecy is what communicates that something is wrong and it is dangerous to tell so no abuse and coercion rarely are needed for incest abuse to occur. Had the other family members been safe to tell then the dynamics of the incestuous family would not have been present, and the abuse would not have occurred.We must stop denial and dissociation. We need truth and reality to heal. We need to get away from our family systems, intervention from the outside, to disclose and heal without desiring to suppress our abuse once again. Acceptance and validation are key for healing. If the victim is blamed, shamed or disbelieved then the effects of the abuse are compounded instead of changed.Let us heal and shift the blame and responsibility from the victim to the appropriate place, the abuser. Let us recover and move from victims to survivors. LET US GO FROM VICTIMS TO VICTORIOUS!!!

As a former counselor, I would recommend this book to my clients who I either knew had incest in their history or I suspected had incest in their history. Many would deny such a history in a way that would only confirm it. But they had to deny it, and that's the problem. Who wants to believe they were betrayed by the ones they trusted the most? And it's not just the offending parent. What about the other parent, the one that should have protected the unprotected? Because it is so unimaginable to accept such betrayal, the human mind typically cannot accept it. I found only one in four who could take that critical first step--acknowledgement of the problem. And it took books like this to get them there, books that clearly say, it's not your fault! Remember the movie "Good Will Hunting?" Remember the punch line to the Matt Damon character? "It's not your fault!" When you're ready to acknowlege the problem, this book will help get you there. This book will help you finally realize, it's not your fault.

What do you say when you read something like this? What do you say when you know deep down inside somebody's life has been so totally disfigured? What do you say when you understand an innocent human life has been so violated? What do you say when you realize that an adult can be so selfishly preoccupied with their own agenda that they go through life hurting other people without batting an eye, all because they are blinded by their own painful circumstances and negative self image? There are some who will read this and for the first time in their lives recognize the harm these innocent victims have suffered(like me), but whatever they realize about it, it will represent only a small fraction of what the victims really suffer through, every day of their private lives. When another human being has no empathy or compassion for others, they hurt people. They cannot give what they do not have...empathy, and their lives are driven by their own selfishness. Empathy and compassion can be learned though. It's never too late, but so many are hurt before that point is reached that the guilt, shame, and reproach, for some, are too much to bear.Life is full of choices, and every bad decision we make has the potential to hurt someone else. I should know...I have made plenty. What do you say, when "sorry"...is not enough? I hope and pray for the fullest recovery of these innocent victims...and wish for them to know that what happened to them...is not in any way their fault. They are zero% responsible for what happened to them. May God make His face to shine upon them always, share with them His patient and unending love, lift their spirits, and give them grace and mercy in all things.God grant us the wisdom to make the right choices and decisions in our lives...the courage to act on those right choices and decisions...and the strength to persevere in His righteousness.This is a great work by Dr. Susan Forward. Everyone that reads this book will develop a level of compassion and empathy they did not have before...of that, you may be assured. God bless the victims with His unconditional love, and help them on their way to a full recovery.

helps you to find some peace still working on this lifetime journey

Book arrived not as described, it wasn't 'good as new' it was in fact written on, pages bent and creased and the pages in the book had all gone brown and spotty. Not happy with my purchase at all.

Il est indispensable que chaque victime d'inceste soit déculpabilisée d'une culpabilité qui revient à son ou ses bourreaux, et non à elle. Ce livre est un outils utile pour atteindre cet objectif. Les effets dévastateurs de l'inceste sont trop mal connus et compris. Ce livre peut contribuer à atténuer ce problème. Merci.