ACOA Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

In association with books, music and videos recommended by Don't Fall Until You See the Whites of Their Lies.

Step 7

Made a list of all those who had hurt us, identified what was done to us, and allowed ourselves to validate, own, and understand the resulting feelings.

Humility is truth: it is perhaps the ultimate truth of our lives as human beings. And truth was the key that unlocked the incest lie for us. Sexual abuse could not exist without deception and illusion. We were forced to participate in this illusion, forced to play our part, and that part almost always required that we hide the truth. There are many ways in which we lived that lie. We were told to act as "lovers" when what we felt was anger and hatred. We were told to be adults when we were confused and frightened children. The parts of our bodies which were meant to give us pleasure were manipulated or exploited and often painfully abused. We were told to be submissi ve to a person who held power over us, yet we were expected to show love and respect for that person. We felt ashamed and dirty, yet we were told act the part of good little children (and later responsible adults). And then we were told to protect our abuser with our silence when what we wanted to do was cry out. After so many lies is it any wonder that we learned well about deception? Sadly, we may have told the ultimate lie to ourselves. "It doesn't affect me...I got over it...it was really nothing."

The Steps ask us to get honest with ourselves, with others in SAA and with our higher power. In particular the Seventh Step gave us the tool of humility to use in dealing with our sexual abuse. Humility is acceptance of ourselves as human beings. Have we truly accepted that? How many times did we expect perfection from ourselves? How many times did we agonize over instances where we might have said the "wrong" thing or worn the "wrong clothes" or even asked the "wrong question?" How many times did we experience confusion and despair or make mistakes and then try to cover up and "look good?" When we demand perfection of ourselves we also demand it from those around us. If we could not accept and fogive our own shortcomings, how could we accept and forgive the shortcomings of our lovers, friends, relatives and co-workers? Our perfectionism eventually made us unapproachable on a feeling level and kept us very lonely.

When we set ourselves up on a pedestal, we began to feel godlike and powerful. As survivors of abuse, we are easy targets for addiction to power. We crave the power that was taken from us when we were victimized. Now it is our turn to have control. In addition our low self worth has led us to believe that we were never as good as those around us, so we often tried to make up for that by always doing and saying the "right" thing. Wehn we do this we were setting ourselves up to fail. More often than not our shortcomings showed up anyway and brought with them the realization that we were not perfect. The Seventh Step can lead us to the realization that acceptance of self, acceptance of others and acceptance of a power greater than ourselves can help us to find serenity.

Hopefully the Fourth and Fifth Steps have aided us in getting in touch with our virtues as well as our shortcomings. As survivors of sexual abuse, it is important that we always keep both before our eyes. If we only look at the virtues we cheat ourselves out of our humanness and separate ourselves from the people around us who can give us love and support. If we only look at the shortcomings we lose ourselves in shame and self-pity. Can we humbly ask a higher power to remove these shortcomings? Can we learn to live more fully not as victims but as survivors?

ACOA Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

In association with books, music and videos recommended by Don't Fall Until You See the Whites of Their Lies.

ACOA Redondo Beach incest survivor MBW Family known for genealogy, Harry Potter Easter Party, wedding pranks, divorce pranks, redhead jokes,  the Oh No A Bear Picture, Colorado resident Marvin the Martian, Spirituality Stories, Casper, Amaryzingrace's Tweety, Angela's Taz, Brittny's and Drew's Angelica and Tommy from Rugrats Playground.  The guys won't want to miss my co-worker and model Marina Blackwell's photo gallery.