Sexual Molestation

For those of you who have wondered, it is definitely possible to have been sexually molested but have no conscious recall of the incident. But based on my nearly 20 years of experience I would say that at least 90% of all people who have been sexually molested have conscious memory of it.   

I have had many first-time clients tell me that they have either been treated for having been molested or been told that they probably were molested.  However, my impression is that most discussion and treatment regarding sexual molestation, or it’s possible occurrence, places too much emphasis on the sexual act.  What I have found is that the main reason sexual molestation devastates the victim is because it is a violation of, a dramatically different experience of, what life had been up to that moment.

Imagine a nine-year-old girl playing dolls in her room…or coloring in her coloring book. She is perhaps thinking of one of her friends she will see in school the next day.  Life at that moment is not especially different than the previous night.  Imagine, then, that in the next few moments her father, or perhaps step-father or older brother, enters the room and sexually molests her in some way. He is not considering her needs, or her nine-year-old’s stage of emotional development. He is totally preoccupied with his needs.  But for that little girl something has happened that, from that experience, she can conclude that where she previously thought life was safe, it no longer is, and if she did not see THIS coming, what else is out there that she will not see coming? And if it is an older man she trusts, why is she not wonderful enough for him to have never considered doing this to her? 

It is perverse not so much because it is sexual but because it violates her sense of what, up to that point, she had come to assume conscious existence was like.  It is a bizarre experience, and without realizing it, she assumes none of the other girls she knows are having anything similar happen to them.  So an inevitable conclusion is that she has become different.  Now she has a secret worry, or even shame, and is not like any of the other girls.   She has changed, but no one else has.   From that night onward she is lost in some limbo, alienated from the world of her peers that she had come to take for granted.   It is the nature of her psyche to deal with this attack on her sense of well-being.  She will now behave differently around others. If for any reason she found pleasure in the incident, her shame will be coupled with guilt.  Everything this little girl does will, in some way, be an apology for, or compensation of, what happened that night.  But, of course, none of her conscious efforts will do anything toward diminishing these new, damaging beliefs.  She is now different and no matter how she behaves, or how others react to her, nothing will reduce her secret sense of self.  Instead, with this new sense of shame, and or guilt, in place, she will frequently misinterpret the actions of others.

Other events can produce the same sense of guilt or shame in a person usually attributed to being sexually molested.  It can be the first time a young boy (or girl) discovers that a parent doesn't really love him, or value him.   It can be a teenager discovering that the man she thought was her birth father is not. The shock of this news can create in a psyche the exact same sense of being flawed, alienated, or threatened, that is produced by sexual molestation. Experiences in life that make us doubt our sense of the universe (our sense of order or fairness) shock our systems to the core. If we can not be sure of what's fair (of how our concept of God, or the universe, intercedes in our lives on a daily basis) then how do we go about the business of living our lives? What is important? What matters?  We might think we can ignore these questions, and go about living our lives without these answers, but if ignored, these unconscious beliefs will be even more powerful, and less understood.

If you know you were sexually molested as a child, this experience may be directly related to you having difficulty expressing your sexual needs as an adult, but it is important to remember that the worst aspect of the experience might not have anything to do with sex, and sexuality. The damage done is from being sideswiped in life. Also, if you feel like you were molested but can't remember experiencing it, its very possible that something else happened to you, that had nothing to do with sex, but caused the same kind of alienation and sense of shame.