CALIFOHNIA STATE UNIVE!.tSI'I'Y,
NQl::;.THHIDGE
INCEST SUHVIVOHS
1-.TQHKING IT 'rHEOUGH
A graduate nroject submitted in partial
satisfaction of the reauirements for the
degree of Master of Arts in Education
Educational Psychology
Counselin(,~
and Guidance
by
Judith Morton Fraser
I·'Iay 19 85
The graduate nroject of Judith Morton Fraser
is approved:
California State University, Northriclse
ii
INCEST SUEVIVOES
VTOEKING IT THIWUGH
by
Judi t1; I-Iorton Fraser
I':!as ter of Art,s in Education
Educational
Psycholo~y
Counseling and Guidance
The tane is documentary in form, exceroting
~0ieces
of my intervie·ws with 2 male e.nd 6 feme_le
incest survivors and 5 1)rofessionals who ci.iscuss:
the definition of' incest, hovr it all be::;;ins,
different tynes of incest, the life difficulties
that come from incest, nossibilities of working
through. these difficulties, and a list o:f resources
available to aid in this working through.
It is
a moving and informative tape that allovlS ·the
audience to look inside the :Jroblems of this
hellish war.
Approximately 50 minutes in lenc{th.
iii
SCRIPT
(All the names of the incest survivors have been changed
to protect their anonymity, with the exception of:
Nancy Rincon, Geri Cottle, Lupe Kerr and Patti Hal one.
By special request, their names v.rill remain recognizable).
Judith
Incest is the kind of child abuse that is hidden behind
closed doors. The bruises, the pain of things broken are
also hidden, inside a broken heart. What incest does to a
person in terms of its later effects can, in many cases, be
considered as "Post Trauma tic Stress". It is a condition
which continues in its life impact, similar, in someways
to what Vietnam veterans went through and then felt they
had to keep secret to themselves. The adult survivors of
incest on this tape have decided to ta~e a stand against
their past "secrets". They have started to mend the broken
parts and part of that mending is to let others know what
kind of private, hellish war they went through.
The Letter
(The letter is photographed with a voice over, and interjected with incest survivors statements.)
Dear Aunt I·l[ary,
You asked me to tell you more about my step-dad.
It all
started when I was four and he was dating my mom, he made
it sound like we had this special "thing", and he'd tal<e me
off for ice cream, but then he'd play with my private parts.
HollY
I'm an incest survivor.
The Letter
When they got married it became more regular. He'd take
me into another room. He told me never to tell or he'd
1
2
The Letter cont'd
kill me.
I was scared.
It got worse as I got older. He
made me do things with him that no child should be doing.
Freada
Hi.
Iv'.iy
name is Freada.
I'm an incest survivor.
The Letter cont' d
girlfriend.s would tall( about their boyfriends sneaking
a l<iss. I<.:issing, wow I I was Viay beyond that.
I was
giving head at age 11.
ji:Ty
Wanda
I'm an incest survivor.
The Letter cont'd
He never let me date. IJiom thought he was being protective,
yeh, protective, he was afraid I'd tell.
I was afraid to
have friends.
l.o~Jhen girls spent the night with me I knew
he'd try something with them. It turned out he'd slept
with all of his other kids from his previous family. They
should have told me.
I thought i t was just me, that there
was something wrong with me.
George
I'll tell you, this incest survivor got stuck in a stage
and it's the stage wherin I was injured by my mother.
The Letter cont'd
It all ended when he wanted full intercourse and I was
older. He tried. to rape me, I screamed. and. said "no, keep
away from me. 11 He choked me and tried to kill me.
I was
so scared I told a friend at school and she told the
counselor and then the police came. They took me awB:y. I
was embarrassed for my friends to see me taken away in a
police car.
Bart
It made me more and more shy, especiallY with authority
figures.
3
The Letter cont'd
I don't think I'll ever trust anyone again.
I just keep to
myself.
I!J:om and I took him to court and we lost. Can you
imagine!
Geri
There is no justice in our judicial system, and anyone who
believes that better tal.<:e a look at it, because there is no
justice, not for the victim. The offender gets everything.
He can have his family in court. He can hire the best
attorney.
But not the victim. The victim is the one, that
not only has suffered the crime, but has to be re-victimized
by the judicial system. So it's really important that our
medical pr·ofessionals, our judges, attorneys, lawenforcement personnel, legislators are educated to this
type of crime.
The Letter cont'd
He'll do it to some other kid.
Sandi
I 1 ve talked to him about what's happened between him and me.
He apologized for that. He did apologize to me. Here
within the last couple years uh •.. although I recently found
out that he had molested my daughter so that was a set back
I feel in our relationship.
So I don't know, you know, it's
just •.. the family '.s just, it's just ... I don't know if I' 11
ever be able to have a family you know, have a family
relationship with a father and a mother and a .... that sort
of thing.
The Letter cont'd
birthday is next month. I'll be 16 years old. N:ost of
those years I've spent feeling guilty.
I know he v.ra.s wrong,
but it doesn't tal<e away the pain.
i'!Iy
Geri
I felt very guilty, that somehow it was my fault, and so
shortly after that ,I was removed out of my ovm home and
tal.<:en to a Catholic convent and lived there for about two
years.
,, '
4
The Letter cont'd
It 1 s just mom and me now and she 1 s ah·Tays keeping an eye on
me. I don't know if she trusts me now.
I might take you
up on that offer to come for the summer. Tru<e Care.
Love Cassie.
Judith
Incest doesn't just mean sexual intercourse.
It can be
fondeling for sexual purposes, tickeling in the private
areas to turn the adult on, taking photographs for sexual
purposes, walking around with an erection in front of the
child.
It's the action and the purpose behind the action.
The purpose being sexual excitement for the adult. Coming
from someone so close to the child, incest turns into a
betrayal.of trust, and the child "feels" this.
They feel
threatened and their innocence is betrayed.
Robert Stuckey (Psycotherapist)
Incest to me means a blood relative.
Someone that you
couldn't marry· legally. 111eaning related closelY umm an
adult using a child for their own needs, the adults needs,
and it could be intercourse, it could be any kind of sexual
activity, fondeling, picture taking, anything that meets
the needs of the adult, the sexual needs of the adult.
Barbara Farber (M.A., M.F.C.T.)
Coming into a bathroom while a daughter is showering, or
bathing, lingering to watch, to stare. If the little girl
becomes uncomfortable the offender's response might be,
11
1;\That' s your problem? I'm your father." Incestuous
spanking, where the child is forced to remove clothing, and
then the incestuous activity becomes confused with discipline. Inappropriate kissing, touching, ·fondling, mutual
masturbation, oral sex, anal intercourse, vaginal intercourse, any type of sexual activity that occurs between
a trusted adult is considered by therapists to be incestuous. IJJhen someone a child looks to for protection, trust,
caretaking, nurturing, violates that trust by imposing a
sexual activity, it is incestuous.
George
I didn't understand that I was an incest survivor until I
was 28 years old, 27 years old.
I thought, and this is
what the media tends to put forth, as good as they have
been recently in getting this out, that incest is intercourse.
Incest means penetration, uh, the father to the
daughter, or the mother doing some kind of activity with
5
George cant' d
the son that leads to some kind of ejaculative thing, a
result, I don't know why it is, but I never had that, but
I can tell you ... it may as well have been.
Judith
Incest knm'i's no boundaries,
rich and poor, all religous
ities.
It happens to large
parented families and those
female.
it happens to boys and girls,
affiliations and all nationalfamilies and small, single
intact, with male abusers and
Dr. Swinger (Psycologist)
Across the board there doesn't seem to be that much difference between men and women in the area of abusing children.
Judith
There does seem to be a higher incidence in families with
stress, for example, Vlhere one parent works all night and
the other all day, where one parent is emotionallY dependent on the other, families prone to violence, alc..:::hoJ.:tc
families or ones with substance abuse, families with little
outside support or involvement, or one v1There the child is
different from other children.
Dr. Swinger (Psycologist)
I've seen studies that indicate that approximately one
third of the women in this country have had a negative
physical seA~al contact with an adult male before they
reach puberty.
Judith
Statistics do vary as to how many children are sexually
abused.
Some say that one out of three families with
female childrenand one out of five with male children.
vn1a tever the numbers, we do know that most of the victimes
vvill never talk about it. The event will be denied.
Denial is a double edged sword.
It works for the victimizer so that he or she can continue inflicting wounds and
against the victims in that they continue to be victimized.
Host victims will live in denial, a few will get help as
children, a few will try to talk about it and find it
difficult to find someone to listen to them and believe
them, and some will get help when they reach adulthood.
I want you to listen now. I want you to hear the pain of
how this "hellish" war of child abuse begins.
6
George
I told her I didn't want to do it, I told her at the time.
I recall too, uh, end I know •.. even a four or five year old
knows that the thermometer's working in my mouth, she says,
"no, it's not working." But I lmew at the time, I kne·w, yes
it is, and I don't know why she wanted to, uh, do these
things, but, uh, this way, except that I remember the lool<
on her face, and I knew that ·wasn't ••. you knov.r, you don't
know what lust is and that human characteristic at that age,
you just know that you feel sick •.. and you feel furious.
Holly
Urn ••• my grandfather molested me a couple times when I stayed
over his house for the night ••. and I usually slept on the
couch, but one time I didn't want to sleep on the couch, so
I went in •.• my grandma told me to go in this room and then
I was sleeping, about earlier before I woke up he started
playing with me and masturbating and stuff.
Nancy Rincon ( Psycodramatist)
My father was the perpetrator. He \Vas alcoholic and he
focused on me as the light of his life so to speak, so it
was all done in the feeling of "you're my special person."
It was with love, at least it felt like that to him.
It
didn't feel like that to me, I don't think. I only remember feeling a lot of revulstion and a lot of feelings of
wanting to get away from him.
~tr mother kind of helped in
this by encouraging this, that we should be a pair, "kiss
daddy goodnight, Nancy, get in bed with daddy, Nancy, don't
wipe off daddy's kisses, Nancy. 11 That kind of message. So
it was very. clear that I was to· be daddy's partner ... and I
tried to avoid it every way I could.
I even got so I
wouldn't touch a plate he'd touched, or use a towel he used,
or I tried to wake up in the morning before he started
manhandling me, so to speak. \!laking me up by stroking my
body, or something like that.
Geri
It was a step-father. NY mother had just married ..• come in
about two o 1 clock in the morning •.• he was drunk and he'd
wandered into my room, and he 1 d put a pillow over my head
and proceeded to insert his penis into me and he raped me
and oral copulated me .•• and after everything took place I
was paralyzed with fear.
It was lil<:e I couldn't move.
FinallY he had fallen asleep and I got up and walked into
the bedroom, bleeding and ,just laid. in the tub in shock,
bec.ause I couldn 1 t cry at this point, and I must have
stayed there for hours before my mother found me.
7
\·Janda
I think about mY relationship with my father ... you knov'l the
church was telling me that sex was wrong, he was telling
me that sex .•. without verbalizing it ... ·was o .k .•.. without
me.rriage, if you loved the person .•. as he as a father
supposedly loved me ... so somehow I was picking up that
message ..• which is ·what creates this confusion as an adult.
I don't know what's right and what' .s ·wrong.
Bart
The earliest thing I can remember, I guess it was before I
was four years old, that's why I say I was between three
and four, was •.. oh ... after getting out of a bath, after being vrashed •.• I can remember him rubbing baby powder on me,
and he was saying things that I can't place with v-That it
was that he said, but I can place how he v-1as sa;ying things
to me, and how shy it made me feel.
My step-father was
somebody I was scared of, because he vias a violent person,
but he was someone who made you know that he al·ways had
control of the situation.
Judith
Most of the incest discussed here began in infancy ... ages
two, three, and four.
It happened with adults the children
trusted and loved; father, grandfather, mother and stepfather.
The pain a child feels that is inflicted by some-.
one they love is almost impossible to bare. The adult that
they have looked up to suddenly has two faces, a kind,
loving one and, at the same time, a painful, hurting one.
Love and hate get all mixed up. The child is helpless,
trapped in an adult world of "love" and "v;iolence". How
does a child handle this? By pretendin.9.;, by depersonalizing (somehow psychologically separating from what is
going on) and by developing what are called adaptable
personalities.
Sandi
I had adaptable personalities •.• um .•. I lost myself in art.
That's pretty much how I survived.
I lived in my own
world, away from people.
Freada
I believe that I removed myself, that I detached myself
from myself and became other people ... other little children.
8
Lupe (VOICES facilitator)
I oretended a lot. You know, you had to pretend to like
dolls and you had to pretend to play the games and everything else •.. but if I stop ·to think about it, I don't
remember dolls or anything, it was sex, all the time.
Nancy (Psycodramatist)
I'm sure I don't remember a lot. I think that's quite
common. That we ,just blank out vast .•. years sometimes.
don't have many childhood memories .•• just vignettes·.
I
Dr. Kuhner (Psycologist)
The kid does whatever she or he can to keep the perpetrator
in a good light, to grow up in a family where there are no
good parents is just totally unbearable, so they keep trying to rationalize what the parent is doing. This is for
my own good, I know my daddy loves me and they tell themselves all sorts of stories just to survive •.• and it's
when they get to adulthood that they come back and they say
"I think somethings terribly "'rrong. 11 It doesn 1 t ma..l{e sense
and memories come up.
Judith
Victims have trouble with their memories .... we all need
love ... v.re come into this world wanting to be held, to be
touched, to be cared for and when we get used, everything
gets twisted around and unclear. One woman described how
she had blocked out her entire life before age eighteen,
she couldn't even remember how to read or write. 1/Iost of
her life had been a blur ..• I talked to another woman who
was a singer, she had supressed the incest all of her life,
except that nov1 v1hen she was in her twenties ••• memories
were jumping out at her while she was performing and she
had to stop and work them through in order to continue
with her career •.• another problem incest survivors have is
feeling guilty, that there's something wrong VIi th them or
they did something wrong. The adult may have added to this
by blaming the child "for being too sexy" ••. and of course
years of not expressing the torment of being used sexually
add to the guilt.
9
Barbara Farber (M.A., M.F.C.T.)
Incest survivors have grown un feeling responsible for the
sexual activity. That feeling of responsibility has been
reinforced by the offenders who have frequently made such
comments as:
"you led me on", 11 If you hadn't worn that
cute little nightgown this never Vlould have happened."
Geri
I felt very guilty, that somehow it was my fault ... and so
shortly after that I was removed out of my own home and
taken to a Catholic convent and lived there for about two
years.
George
I was four or five years old and these things were happening ••• I remember feeling the rage and I remember it now,
all the rage I felt ••. but, even though she was just being
nice to me ••. and so I guess something happened in there
where my mind just got a twist •.. where I must be awful,
awful bad to be that way. What kind of a rotten·person
must I be for hating another who's ,just being kind?
Sandi
I have to learn how to not beat myself because of things
anymore ••• you know I used to be so hard on myself because
I blamed myself for everything and I felt so guilty and so
dirty because of what had happened to me ... and I thought I
was to blame.
Freada
My self-esteem has been so low that I've always felt that
how could a supposedly normal man have desires for me and
love me and want to spend a life with me because I alvlays
thought that I was such a piece of crap that that would be
impossible.
Nancy Rincon
I thought if I were good enough, if I just were a good
enough girl these things wouldn't be happening to me.
Somehow it was my fault.
Someho·w I had a core of filth
or badness inside me, v1hich I still sometimes wonder if
it's down there today, even though I know it isn't, but
somehow it was just a feeling of a bad seed.
10
Judith
Betrayal of innocence. Denial is a large factor in growing
up. The need to develop almost schizophrenic patterns to
handle experiences, and the unfair burden of guilt of the
victimized. These are all parts of the hellish war. The
11
vrar •Hi thin the survivor becomes:
if I could just be good
enough, change myself enough, be different, then it'd be
o.k." Survivors blame themselves ... they must be the guilty
ones. They feel responsible. They don't understand that
it's never the childs fault, it is alvrays the adults responsibility.
Clarissa Chandler (Alcoholism
Center for Viomen)
I think in that whole process what has felt real importa"'lt
for me to talk to women about is that it's not just me
individual who was responsible, because incest survivors
are never responsible, she was a child ..• it's the adults
around her who were responsible .•. and what kind of community, what kind of society allows that level of violence
against women and children in our society, and I think
that's something critical to examine.
Judith
The adult they wanted to love and trust kept using them, so
they can't be trusted; this gets translated into LOVE can't
be trusted. Survivors learn to cut off feelings.
It doesn't feel good to be used, so incest survivors usuallY just
stop feeling.
'rhey learn to play a role and pretend. They
become a brave warrier. This makes it very difficult when
they grow up and want a special relationship.
Dr. Swinger (Psychologist)
It's kind of scary when you start to think that you have
someone that's, say has been a victim of incest and it
interferes with their basic ability to trust later on ... and
if ~rou can't trust it 1 s difficult to form heal thy relationships with anyone.
If you can't form healthy relationships
with anyone then it's unlikely that you can produce a
heal thy family.
If we don't have heal thy families, the
familY being the cornerstone of our society then that's the
big problem.
i'
.
11
George
The most trusted member of that half of the human race
betrayed me in a hideous way and you know, I know it's
come out in various forms.
I find myself feeling very
uncomfortable with women. Strangely enough oarticularly
women of beauty, good looks call it, succeed ••. you know
particularly a Raquel Welch who's an attorney will just
really stir me up inside.
Nancy Rincon
I've had a lot of troubles in my marriages. A lot of
trouble with intimacy.
I still don't know what it means
to be truly intimate with a man, or felt as if I didn't
trust, no way I could trust, or I falced a lot of sexual
responses because I didn't have any and I thought I should
and I wanted to be normal. I always wanted to be normal,
and it wasn't 'till I was fourty-five that I achieved that,
a normal sexual response and that was with a lot of work on
myself.
Bart
I would come into a situation where if it wasn 1 t phYsical
violence that was going on then it was emotional violence
that was going on and it was something that I became real
good at also ••. it was ••. I could abuse somebody and make 'em
break out in tears or leave in total frustration and ..• I
was good at ruining people's days for 'em.
Nancy Rincon
I thought that the ·v.,ay you got love was to throw yourself
at men and be seductive and plaY little games and that men
like you •.• but that didn 1 t worl-< either .•• so I ended up
feeling lonesome, very lonely ••. and then deciding I was
just unattractive and unappealing and so I married the
first man who was interested in me, because I felt he was
the only one who would ever like me.
VIand a
I felt if I collected enough men it
I would collect men.
would prove that I was alright.
I felt I didn 1 t clesearve
quality men, I attracted losers. It gets back to I didn't
desearve quality men.
12
Holly
I ... urn ... get along with them for a while and then ... urn ...
I start having an attitude change and then thinking that I
vrasn' t good enough to be their friend, or they weren 1 t
good enough to be my friend, or just the things that we did
together and stuff and if I didn't like it then we 1 d just
get into lots of fights and stuff, end we don't end up to
be friends anymore.
I had to change friends a lot. People
do sometimes.
Sandi
I have a hard time trusting ... especially the opposite sex,
and very, very, fearful .•• I've had to work through a lot
of fear.
Geri
I don't even trust my husband, Which is a horrible thing
to say, but it's true. We've been married fourteen years,
but I never totally let him in, because, there's al·wa.ys
that feeling that he's going to betray me and I never want
to set myself up for it.
Fread a
Um •.. very severe relationship disability ..• total distrust ..
lots of betrayel. Whenever someone is nice to me or
compliments me, I still have a real problem with this.
Immediately there's this thing that goes through my mind
that's 11 what do they want from me .•. what do they want? 11
"What are they going to do to me?" "How are they going to
hurt me?" It's been real difficult for me to accept that
maybe people would like me.
Geri
We have a lot of lack of communication in our area of
sexual intimacy and uh •.. there are times when I feel that
he's overbearing and I just want him off of me.
I c~i't
get him off of me too quicklY .•• and then I can't explain it
to him because I know being a man he's not reallY understanding what I'm feeling .•.• and I just feel like I'm
being engulfed by this overbearing individual and that I'm
going to be attacked again.
13
Frieda
I can't remember the last time that •.. that I had a sexual
relationship with my husband.
It's been at least four or
five months .•. and that's very, very, difficult for him.
He's being as understanding as he can be •.. and it's very
difficult for him to deal with, especially being very
active in his disease (alcoholism) ... but it's .just something that •.. there's this terrible fear inside me ... and if
I have sex right now I'm gonna just dissolve, disintegrate.
I don't know vvhat' s going to happen to me ... but there 1 s
.just a total inability there to have any intimacy '•"hatsoever.
Barbara Farber
One that I see always, literaly across the board is a
history of unstable relationships. That can be with their
spouses, it can be with lovers, it can be with friends,
with family •.• chances are the relationships with anyone in
their life with whom they are close is going to be unstable,
dysfunctional, distorted in some way. Women who were
incested as children have grown up not feeling very good
about themse 1 ves .•• and as a result when they get older and
they meet a man who is caring, and kind, and nurturing, and
sensitive, she will reject him as a possible future mate
because she expects to be abused in a relationship and she
doesn't feel that she deserves that kind of care, so
:frequently what will happen, and be aware that all of this
happens on an unconscious level, it's not planned out, is
that she will marry a man who will continue the abuse that
took place in her family of origin, because that is the
only kind of man she feels she deserves, so she will
frequently marry an alcoholic, or a ba tterer, or a man who
will in turn molest her children, or someone who is verbally, psychologically abusive, but frequently what will
happen is she will find herself in the unsettled, unstable
relationship.
Judith
Incest is not just a shock and trauma at the time it is
happening ••• the effects of it continue right on, into adult
life. As you've seen, adult relationships can be seriously
impaired.
Because the original trust with someone they
loved was abused, the adult continues to have difficulty
trusting others, underneath this mistrust of others is a
mistrust of self. Since they were used at a vulnerable
time to satisfy the adults needs, since their child needs
were so easilY disgarded, they will continue to disgard and
not trust their ovm feelings on into adulthood. They have
14
Judith cont'd
They have a hard time believing in themselves.
George
I don't have confidence in my ability to succeed.
I don't
think I deserve success. \llhen I come right to the point
v'lhere I think that "I can do well here" at this important
thing •.. a job ... success in school ••. I undermine myself,
sabatage my life and that's the pattern.
Bart
I trust myself much less that I trust anyone else ... because
I'm somebody that can react on the spur of the moment.
Sandi
\'/ell, I trust myself today ..• but I had to struggle with
that one.
I for a long time, got to a point where I didn't
even trust myself.
I ... uh ... sank into alcoholism very
deeply and it was through that that I lost a lot of trust
for myself.
Fread a
J'.1:Y whole life has been one big game of pretend, pretending
to be whatever it is that the person I was vri th at the time
wanted me to be.
Patti
The hard time is when people want to compliment you or
something like that, and you say it and you smile and you
say "yeah" but you don 1 t believe it ••. and I had one friend
that would tell me, and she wasn't very good looking and
. things like that, but she would tell me that she'd go and
smile at herself in the mirror all the time ••• and I seen
that in one of our books, in fact, that book about growing
out of pain, where literaly you go and smile at yourself in
the mirror all the time and think that's fine and you stick
your tongue out at yourself .•• you can not feel that smile
because you still have so much self hatred •.. you know and
your still trying. It's just a process of growing and
trying to find your self-esteem, to find the o.k.ness.
15
Judith
Not being able to trust others, not being able to trust
themselves leads to difficulty in so many areas. The stress
of living with the betrayel interferes with personal relationsips, jobs, school, and can also lead to an endless
array of physical problems as well as self induced pain.
Patti
I've had three foot surgeries from bone tumors, bone growths
and gall bladder's gone, dentures at nineteen years·old,
neck surgeries '."lith tumors, lots of female organ problems
with both children ••• \-vi th my first child I was in the
hospital six weeks, almost died twice, toxemia poisoning,
left the afterbirth in me ... had a temperature of one
hundred and eight degrees because it was so bad, they said.
I should not have lived through that alone. Every surgery
I've had has had it's complications with infection •..
pneumonia, etc., because I didn't take care of' myself, but
now I'm into vitamins and making myself eat a salad a day
and fruits and so I'm working very hard on that so I can
survive, all of my life.
Clarissa Chandler
I think in other ways women are at risk for .just finding
means to numb out the pain, to like move beyond it, try to
pretend it's not happening so their at risk for alcholism,
they're at risk for ulcers, a lot of stress related disorders, or issues will come up ... umm ..• functioning but not
functioning, you know functioning on a living level in a
"get through your day" level but not functioning internally,
not able to assess what's really happening to them.
Lupe
The enormous amount of women out there suffering VJith female
problems· that it's not known why and yet the female organs
are stimulated and you psych yourself uo to have problems.
I know that I had a hysterectomy at age· thirty and I
couldn't understand why .•• uh, stress related problems,
medical problems, like shingles, all sorts of things caused
by stress.
Dr. Swinger
I've heard it correlated V·Ti th prostitution, I've heard it
correlated with depression and suicide, I've heard of
correlationships with drug abuse and substance abuse. Very
high correlations. School performance .•• so what you have is
people reacting to a very traumatic episode in their lives
16
Dr. Swinger con t' d
and instead of interacting with the society and the environment as it's pres en ted to them they are bringing pain
and trauma and fear and trepidation to that situation, and
they're bringing it in such a way that it keeps people
around them from ever being able to get close enough to be
nurturing and that kind of thing.
Robert Stuckey
We are so competitive and so comparison oriented, things
oriented that •.. umm .•• people can be well educated, affluent
and outwardly successful and still have terrible self
esteem.
I think at the bottom it's really what you think
of yourself. Self esteem is just a lifetime batting
average, hovr many times have you failed or succeeded based
on your perception of things.
It demonstrates itself in
law violations, substance abuse, suicidal behavior, self
destructive behavior, they figure that half of the single
car accidents on the freeway are really suicides.
Barbara Farber
It was the responsibility of the e.dul t to prevent the
sexual activity •.• but because no one has said that to her,
she finds a number of we_ys to punish herself. One of the
ways that this might happen is what v;re call self-mutilation.
She may make marks on her arms, she may injure herself on
the private parts of her body, she may mutilate herself by
burning herself either on parts of the body that are
exposed to the public or not. Substance abuse is a very
common way of punishing oneself. It is also anesthesia.
So alcoholism and drug abuse are common, not only self
destructive punishing behaviors but, also one of the long
term effects that we see. A variety of medical problems,
especially obstrectical and gynecological abound in incest
survivors who have very long, detailed and complicated
medical histories. Frequently with very invasive, painful
procedures having been performed.
17
Judith
The list of problems seems endless, relationship difficulties, school and job difficulties, depression, dysphoria or
spacing out, breakthroughs at unsuspected times of past
painful experiences, medical problems, self destruction
tendencies, obesity, anorexia, suicide, etc., etc .. A too
common problem people surviving incest have is that they
have not learned how to set limits. As children, they
didn't learn how to take care of themselves, as adults,
they still have these problems.
Clarissa Chandler
I think sometimes the reclaiming of ones body is something
that people don't talk about a Vlhole lot •.. but one of the
things that happens for an incest survivor is the total
invasion and loss of barriers. The basic sence of self,
that "I am", that essential "I am a child, I am a woman,
and I own me," is really broken do,,m. At no point has she
been able to believe "that my body is mine", so that whole
process of learning t;o say "my leg is my leg, my face is my
face, my body is mine and my body and all its feelings is
o.k.", is a whole new territory and it can be really terrifying because incest is something that happens to ones body
and it's something that you haven't talked about. A person
hsn't reallY had a chance to expose, so the process of
reclaiming that, reclaiming themselves, reclaiming who you
are, in the essential "now" person ••• Emd orie of the things
that happens with incest is a sence of divorce from your
body, like when the molest starts the emotional separating
from the body, "it's happening to my body, it's not haDpening to me", and going through a process of joining body and
me and spirit and making yourself whole is real essential.
Judith
Hov'l does a person learn how to put limits on the way others
treat them? Earlier we talked about denial and its power
over the incest victim.
George
To deny ••. either that you've had the incest yourself ••. in
this day of positive mental attitude or positive, you know,
umm, it didn't happen or it doesn't mean anything, or it
shouldn't mean anything •.• chin up and go on with your life,
and ••• but to deny it, you know, I think of that and I
18
George cont 1 d
think of maybe a soldier in combat, and he's been wounded
in the arm, and it's like him saying "oh, I'm not v·rounded"
and his arm's just bleeding and his gore's running out and
he goes on in battle and continues as if nothing's vrrong,
and hi? lifeblood drains out and he falls to the earth and
faints and .•• and ••. he dies ... and it's like that, I think,
with this. 'l'hat if you have had this experience, it's just
as ludicrous to say "no" it didn't happen, or more commonly
and more destructive, is for someone to say it doesn't mean
anything.
Judith
ve listened to survivors and professionals talk about
the ongoing problems that come from incest. Problems that
come from loss of trust of others and loss of trust of self.
They've let us see the pain, they've let us into what they
have had to deal with, but they also want to give us some
hope. There is a way to work through the pain ... a way to
see the light at the end of the tunnel, a way to work
through the denial, a clearning beyond the battlefield. The
first step might be a phone call and then on to a self help
group or professional counseling.
VIe
1
Crises Line Operator
Call us before it gets to late. Call us before you do it
to your child, there's a lot of things in our life that we
want to pass on to our generation •.• let's not pass this on.
Dr. Kuhner
We deal with the topics that are most important to the
adult incest survivor, comfort, love and trust, sexuality,
anger, self-destructiveness, secrets, family roles. ~'That
roles were you demanded to play in your family? l·vhat roles
are you playing now in your current relationship? The real
stuff, post traumatic stress, victim triangles, the roles
about that, victim, perpetrator, rescuer, real educational
stuff.
It 1 s kind ot' like abuse 101.
Sandi
You know I had to learn how to just like me ••• just care
about my health, my body, my ••• you know, just drinking a
warm glass of milk before I go to bed and taking a bath,
simple, little things like that. Going out and buying
myself something new ••• you know and not settling for second
best, like I always have done in the past.
19
Patti
You can actually take childhood pictures and if you really
look at them you can see '~Nhen you were a child, the innocent look and kind of fun loving •.• and when there 1 s a
serious adult look in the childs' eyes ..• and you can also
tell, sometimes you can use that way to find out when the
incest actually began. You can go from that.
Geri
I've done some lobbying up in the assembly on bills.that
we thought were really important.
I've sat on the child
abuse council in Ventura County. I '·m the chair to a
legislative committee in Ventura County and I do a lot of
networking with other agencies that have similar goals.
\•Janda
I've started to look inside myself to find peace instead of
running around frantically trying to find other people to
make me happy or build up my self confidence.
Nancy Rincon
Incest is like having a mark on your back that you can't see
without a mirror ••• and it seems to me we need each other to
see that mark. The mirrors are the other people in your
life who will share with you in a group or in a therapy or
whatever. \J.Je really need to get the secrets out and mal<e
real the past.
Dr. Swinger
\\Je do parent education, individual and group treatment
there, assessments for the court and D.P.S.S •... with the
idea of unifying families.
We work with a range of abusive
episodes there and we try to work with the families there
for a •.• uh ••. about a year.
It usually takes a minimum of
a year to make sufficient progress. My guess is it's
probably the best known center of its type in L.A ..•. if not
one of the best known in the country.
Clarissa Chandler
I think the most essential thing is to believe yourself. I
think it is essential ••• and letkhat be a basis of moving
on and reaching out.
20
Judith
Incest is an experience of ppysical and psychological
humiliation.
It is rational to not want to think or talk
about it. Yet, this silence keeps the power of the
humiliation alive, allows adult relationships to be marred,
to interfere with your own relationships with children. To
keep silent is to maintain the enemy of self-criticism and
mistrust of others alive and strong ••..• Some of the survivors have suggested treating yourself like you would want
someone else to treat you, reliving a part of your childhood now that it is safe, using psycodrama to re-act some
painful issues, with different endings in your life.
I
could add that writing letters to those who victimized you
and letting them know your feelings might be helpful. •. you
don't have to mail them.
Getting involved to help others
seems to be very helpful.
It is time to end the vvar, heal
your wounds and begin a new, better life.
Credits
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN HADE POSSIBLE THROUGH A PAHTIAL GRANT
FROM REG ION NINE RESOURCE CEW.rER, YOUTH AND FAMILIES
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, California, 90032
INCEST SURVIVORS 1,1TAS ALSO AHARDED A PA.c"\TIAL GRANT FROl\1
THE ELEVENTH ANNUAL BELLE DUBNOFF AWA.."\DS
The Department of Educational Psychology Av.rard
AVAILABLE TREATT-.1ENT FOR SEXUAL ABUSE AND INCES'r
Parents United
P.O. Box 952
San Jose, California 95108
(they will refer you to a local chapter for familys)
Incest Survivors Anonymous
P.O. Box 5613
Long Beach, California 90805-0613
(they also have an outreach program and present speakers)
Voices - Victims of Incest Can Emerge Survivors
1100 Oxley
Pasadena, California 91030
818-304-9026
Children's Institue International
701 s. New Hampshire
Los Angeles, California 90005
213-385-5104
21
CREDITS cont'd
Kuhner Institute of Nul ti:ole Personalities
Dr. Susan Kuhner
6736 Laurel Canyon Blvd. #221
Los Angeles, California 91635
818-851-8863
Alcoholism Center for Women
Clarissa Chandler
1147 s. Alverado
Los Angeles, California 90006
213-3 81-7805
Psycodrarna
Nancy Rincon
11816 Avon Way
Los Angeles, California 90066
213-397-0728
Barbara Farber, r-1-A., Tvi.F.C.T. and Associates #107
2239 Townsgate Road
Westlake Village, California 90361
805-496-3800
San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center
6 740 Kester Ave.
Van Nuys, California 91405
818-988-8050
Crises Phone Lines
Zenith 2-1234
349-ATLT
1-800-4-A-CHILD
Resource Center
Region Nine Resource Center for Children, Youth &
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, California 90032
Robert Stuckey, Psycotherapist
Hershel K. Swinger, Psycologist
Slam - Society's League Against Molestation
P.o. Box 6007
Thousand Oaks, California 91359-6907
Fa~ilies
22
CHEDITS cont'cl
Produced and directed by Judith Fraser
Photograp0~:
Editing:
Gordon Associates, B.F.I. Productions
Price Pethal
Judith Fraser, Tony Hillbruner
Special song material:
"Learning to Survive" by Dave
Powell and Judith Fraser
Masters Project Advisors:
Dr. :Marvin Chernoff,
Dr. Luis Rubalcava, Irv Pearlberg
LEARNING TO SURVIVE
(Song is sung over the credits)
I'm taking a walk where I used to fall
back to the places that I can recall
I'm going through changes that I've never dreamed of at all
I'm
I'm
I'm
I 1m
facing my fears and letting 'em go
starting to heal, I'm starting to grow
ready to reach out and trust in the people I know
_finding my way home
I'm learning to survive
one day at a time
I'm learning to reach in
and trust myself ag'in
I'm walking in the sun
no more need to run
one day at a time
I'm learning to survive