By Gordon Victor Monday
“A butterfly bats it’s wings in China . . .
and a hurricane happens in Florida.”
Edward Norton Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist, who was one of the first proponents of Chaos Theory, first proposed the butterfly effect in a speech he delivered titled, “Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas.” What Lorenz was metaphorically referring to was how small changes in one area of life can dramatically and profoundly affect behaviors in other areas of life. Additionally, these effects can render behavior, or actions, extremely unpredictable. Small actions or experiences even stored in the unconscious mind, can certainly affect a person’s behavior in very unique and unexpected ways.
One need only look at undergraduate suicide for an example. Every single day of the week, 365 days a year, four collage students commit suicide in this country. In most cases no previous depression, unhappiness, or misery was obvious to anyone. Loved ones are left to wonder, even agonize over the minute details and insignificant factors that precipitated a suicide. Sexual abuse is like that as well. The victims of sexual abuse are so often the end result of a unique butterfly effect. The initial victim is like the butterfly. The people that surround the victim then becoming secondary victims in their own right. They are sort of the collapsed buildings and uprooted trees the hurricane has left behind.
There are dozens of different kinds of sexual abuse; fathers against daughters, husbands against wives, unwanted sexual assault of any kind, mothers against sons or daughters, brothers to sisters, teachers to students, strangers against any child, the neighbor who coerces your child over the backyard fence, and then there’s always Uncle John or Aunt Mildred lurking in the background, just to name a few. For the purposes of this article I’m going to limit the discussion to the most unacknowledged victim of all . . . the wife who discovers her husband has been committing the most dastardly of acts upon her daughter.
Every day a mother somewhere faces the awful reality that her child has been sexually abused, and worse, that it took place in her very home, often by someone who is trusted by not only the child but the mother as well. That mother is always the secondary victim of assault. In my many years of treating victims of sexual abuse I have encountered every form of emotional response from mothers who feel trapped in a situation not of their own making. They almost always ask, “How could this happen?” Then, I hear and see confusion, shock, denial, numbness, guilt, fear, hurt, anger, depression, dejection and excessive worry just to name some of the emotion turmoil that lies within. However, in the midst of the hurricane, I have found one common denominator in being the secondary victim of sexual abuse, it is this, “Please, I beg you, don’t tell anyone!” I hear it every time, often with the daughter sitting right there next to the mother. Little do they realize secrecy is the chain that binds all the victims to the perpetrator, the one inexplicable link that if unbroken is destine to destroy not just one life, but the live of all that surround the perpetrator.
- Mr. Gordon Monday passed away the summer of 2010. - Mr. Monday lived and practiced counseling in Orlando, Florida. He has been on the Board of Directors of the Central Florida Suicide Prevention and Crisis Intervention Center, The Coordinator of Psychiatric Services at The University Behavioral Center Psychiatric Hospital, worked under grants for the Florida Department of Corrections and the Pinellis/Pasco County State’s Attorney’s Office, testified in numerous cases before the Department of Children and Family Services court system, and has been in private practice for over fifteen years. He holds a terminal applied Master of Science in Clinical Psychology from The University of Central Florida.
© 2010
I have yet to meet a mother who did not feel like a failure as a mother or wife, and thus terrified over what relatives, neighbors, friends, co-workers, loved ones, or even more frightening, what the abuser will think or even do. Whenever I hear this I turn directly to the daughter, look her straight in the eyes and emphatically say, “It’s not your fault!” I then turn sharply to the mother, look her straight in the eyes and emphatically say, “It’s not your fault either! Do you understand me?!” Of course no mother ever does, but it makes for a good stating point. It is then that the onslaught of questions begins.
“Why didn’t I know about it?”
“How could he have done this?”
“Why didn’t I see it?”
Then comes the most difficult question of all, “Why didn’t she tell me about it?”
“Why didn’t I know about it?”
“How could he have done this?”
“Why didn’t I see it?”
Then comes the most difficult question of all, “Why didn’t she tell me about it?”
These are just some of the questions that may go round and round in her mind after she finds out about the abuse. Her head may race constantly. She may want to know exactly what happened detail for detail, or she may not want to hear about it at all. She may find it difficult, if not impossible, to listen to her child even if the child tries to talk to her about it. There is even the possibility that she suspected something was not quite right in the first place. She could not quite put your finger on what it was, but she felt it. I’ve had women tell me they had a bad feeling in their gut. Something was just not quite right, but they just could not bring themselves to ask. With hindsight it is often easy to see what was really going on. But, sexual abuse is the last thing that most people expect to be happening in their family. Abuse starts for one reason, but it continues for two others: Secrecy and fear. They work, and work very well indeed.
Many women believe that their partner sexually abused their child because he was not receiving the sexual satisfaction he needed from her, or she is a failure as a wife and mother, or even remarkably that he could not control himself. All of this is hog wash. The reason men sexually abuse children is about their need to feel powerful and in control. It is no different than the common rapist. It is not about sex. Research has shown there may be sexual gratification on some disturbed level, but it’s primarily about power and control. For any woman to think otherwise is fool hardy. He is in control of his behavior and he can choose not to abuse, he just doesn’t. Therefore, it cannot passably be your fault that you were not aware of it sooner. It is up to every individual adult person to be responsible for their own behavior. It is not the women's responsibility to police her partner's behavior. In fact, most abusers take great care to carry out the abuse in secret. Often the entire situation is systematically organized so that no one else will find out what is happening. Threats are always made toward the primary victim, both direct and subtle. These threats keep the chain of events unbroken. It is not only common for mothers to ask me if they were somehow responsible for the abuse, but, “Was my child at fault?” The answer is, “Never!” Men who sexually abuse children are often having normal sexual relationships with their wives, or girlfriends if that is the case. What is important to remember is that no-one ever asks to be sexually abused. It is not uncommon for a child to care for the person who is abusing them. But this does not mean that they want the abuse to happen or that they like it. Your child may have wanted to spend time with the abuser but because of subtle threats she could not have stopped it from happening even if she wanted to.
Incest is as devasting as a tornado to a family.
As the secondary victim of sexual abuse you can do certain things to help your child deal with it’s effects. Some important things to not only consider, but carry out as best you can are:
1) Praise you child for telling and more importantly believe them.
2) Help them to feel safe and protect them from further abuse.
3) Don’t push. Allow them to feel and express the whole range of feelings they may be experiencing.
4) Try to understand the reasons they couldn't tell you about it.
5) Give them as much control as possible over the decisions which are made about them, i.e., respect their secrets - don't tell others what has happened without their permission to do so.
6) Find someone they can trust to talk about what has happened to them, and,
7) Get help for yourself.
You cannot go it alone and be better for it. It simply won’t work. I want to emphasize this last point the most. Mothers of children who have been sexually abused need support and help too. They cannot help their daughters without it. It is important for you to be able to cope with the feelings and questions you may be having about what has happened.
Questions such as:
Will my child be OK?
What will happen to her?
What will happen to the abuser?
Will I ever be able to trust him again?
Should I stay in the relationship with him?
Who do I believe if he says it was all the child's fault or worse it didn't even happen at all?
Why is my daughter so angry at me, I didn’t abuse her? And, what I have heard so many times, “Did this happen to me as a child too?”
Will my child be OK?
What will happen to her?
What will happen to the abuser?
Will I ever be able to trust him again?
Should I stay in the relationship with him?
Who do I believe if he says it was all the child's fault or worse it didn't even happen at all?
Why is my daughter so angry at me, I didn’t abuse her? And, what I have heard so many times, “Did this happen to me as a child too?”
We may not know the answer to that last question yet, but what we do know is this, “It happened to you as a mother, and it happened as a direct result of The Butterfly Effect.”
Healing can begin with one small flower seed in your heart.
