Sexual Abuse
The military has a lot of traditions. Many are good and serve a purpose, other’s – not so much. Sexual abuse in the military is one of them. I spent 8 years in the military and I’ve seen my share of both. Clearly things haven’t improved much in the 15 years since I got out. I find it interesting during the recent Senate hearings watching the top brass express their outrage at the situation. My experience is that senior officers are often the worst offenders. Not to color all the brass with the same brush, but when abuse is happening at the lower levels, it doesn’t get much attention. Sexual abuse and sexual discrimination by senior officers is much more visible, and in some cases blatant. Everybody knows, but no one talks.
Beautiful Girls
Most women like to be appreciated for their brains rather than their bodies. But the reality is that beautiful girls tend to get extra attention. The military is no different. Occasionally things go beyond that. I remember one new airman that joined our unit. I think she was supposed to be admin support, but she could easily have been a model. Within 2 weeks of her being assigned, a senior officer happened to see her and she was reassigned to the General’s staff. I don’t know what ever happened to her, but there was no official reason for her to be reassigned.
You would also see trends in General’s executive officers. The percentage of attractive 30 something blonds in these roles was well above statistical average. The same was true for jet pilots who flew General officers around. Most people who have been in the military have similar examples from their own experience. In many ways, you might see similar examples in the corporate world. Some of the main differences related to sexual abuse come in how things are handled, when things go beyond some referential treatment.
Commander’s Discretion
Usually when someone reports sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or similar issues, the base Inspector General will refer the issue to the unit commander for further investigation. The Commander in turn will typically assign a Captain or Major as the investigating officer. They are given authority to take statements, interview witnesses, and gather evidence.
I had to do this once in my career. Most people are afraid to talk to you, and if they do they usually don’t want their statements traced back to them. So you usually end up interviewing extra people just so the people who have information aren’t singled out. It usually takes a couple of weeks, and then you put together a formal report and return it to the Commander for further review/action. The Commander then provides a response to the Inspector General about whether anything was found and whether further action is necessary.
The problem here is that there is no requirement for the paperwork from the investigation to go the IG. And many times it doesn’t. I was ordered to submit all copies of the report to the Commander and to shred all working papers. I never learned the outcome, but I suspect the report ended in the shredder as well.
Once something becomes an official investigation, even in the case of a court martial, the ranking officer in charge has a final say in the matter. So even a formal finding of guilt can be vacated through Commander’s discretion. Such is the fate of all to many military sexual assault victims.
Fix the Problem (Translation – Make the Problem Go Away)
There are a lot of video clips this week of senior military leaders saying that the problem needs to be fixed immediately. The issue is that the problem isn’t getting worse, it is that victims are feeling more comfortable coming forward. Typically only about 15% of cases are reported. If you get up to 30% it suddenly looks like an epidemic to the outside world. Most people won’t see that aspect. We think all crimes are reported, and with sexual assault the opposite is true.
In the early stages, the more you educate, the greater the increase in the number of reported cases. People don’t know how to deal with this apparent opposite reaction. The easiest way to get the numbers to go down is to stop asking if there is a problem. It’s counter intuitive and it’s also counter productive. Unfortunately it is likely to happen. Senior military leaders need to educate those at all levels that this is the path to fixing the problem. During that time, they are going to need thick skins and provide a safe environment for all victims to come forward.
Steps Forward
I don’t know if the top brass will be able to create the enlightened environment they need so they can weather the storm until numbers actually start to drop. Removal of Commanders discretion is a big step forward. The days of abuse investigation files being tossed in a drawer or a shredder will quickly come to an end.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Parenting
Whether your child has been sexually abused or not, just about every parent thinks they are a horrible parent at some point. It’s one of those ideas that others generally don’t point out to you, but we beat ourselves up over and then look for proof that it is true.
“Weren’t you watching them?”
When your kids fall and need stitches, you might run this thought through your brain. When your child is molested, sooner or later someone is likely to say it out loud. It’s not meant to be judgmental it’s more a statement of self preservation that “this couldn’t happen to me”. The unenlightened have a view of world safety where you don’t take candy from strangers. Not one where you have to worry about a teacher, priests or family member.
The same people who watch a woman cut in half by a magician, can’t believe that someone they trust would deceive them in the most unimaginable way possible. Getting people to believe that you didn’t know your child was being sexually abused is probably one step below alien abduction. And much like trying to convince people the earth wasn’t flat or the center of the universe, it’s not worth getting burned at the stake over. It just takes time.
“I hate you and never want to speak to you again”
This one you might hear from your child. I think it may be standard programming for many teenagers but if you are dealing with parental guilt from thinking you could have prevented your child’s abuse, these words may sink in deeper than they would otherwise. Surely there must be something that you did wrong. More reinforcement that you are a horrible parent. Welcome to reactive behavior. Many children repress their emotions during abuse, and once the cat is out of the bag, those bottled up emotions come pouring out. Usually with all the control and order of a exploding catsup bottle. Lots of mess, and difficult to clean up. The key is to know that these outbursts are often magnified and out of context, and with a little luck, there is a return to normal in your future.
“I should have done things different”
You could easily say I couldn’t have done anything differently. Both are true and false, much like Schrodinger’s cat. It’s easy to second guess yourself, beat yourself up, rinse and repeat. This one of those things that everyone has to figure out for themselves. Hindsight reveals so much that we convince ourselves that we should have had the same insight at the time of the incident. It’s not true. It’s harder to see when you can play out multiple scenarios in your head.
A long time ago, I had a helicopter crash in the woods in back of my house. When I got to the wreckage, I found two people on fire. It’s not an image or smell that you ever forget. The feeling of not being able to pull someone out of a burning aircraft doesn’t go away either. Even the medical examiner telling you they were dead before they hit the ground still doesn’t push away doubts. The next day I learned the passenger was the brother of a girl I went to school with. I didn’t speak to her for almost a year after that.
There are a couple things I learned. Some things you can’t control. You can do everything right, and still not change events that are destined to happen. It’s not a failing on your part, it’s just that you didn’t play the role that you though you should have in this scenario. A year later I happened to bump into the sister of the guy I found and she only wanted to know was if I was with her brother when he died. Perhaps delivering that message was the sole purpose of me being there. As parents we can’t always prevent the things that happen to our children, but we can be there for what happens after, in which ever format that might be.
Keeping Score
We think we know who the good parents are. And sometimes we think it’s not us. The reality is that we are playing the role we are supposed to play. Some days we will succeed, and other days we will fail. It’s just part of the journey we are on. Learn from our mistakes and try not to make them to many times. We can’t be perfect, but that doesn’t make us a horrible parent.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
Groucho Marx is famous for saying that he would never want to be the member of a club that would want him as a member. As far as parenting goes, I believe being the parent of a sexually abused child is the second worst club to be a member of. It’s painful, it lingers, and no one really understands it. In most cases though, there is a silver lining, and that is that your child is still alive.
In Newtown Connecticut this morning 20 parents sent their kids off to school not knowing they were going to be joining the ranks of the the worst club for parents. When a single child dies, we focus on the family. We go through the rituals we always go through when someone dies. When something occurs on this scale it’s a shock to the system. You can’t take it all in, and you can’t focus on grief the way you usually do. One death is misfortune but something on this scale is just hard to explain. You can actually count the number of times it has happened in the United States on one hand in the last 100 years. We don’t do well with things that don’t make sense and are hard to explain. Take many of the elements of sexual abuse and magnify it by 10.
What hurts more?
It’s not fair or realist to compare sexual abuse with the death of a child. But it’s something we do all the time. People will compare the incidents in their life – abuse, addiction, divorce, loss, bankruptcy, cancer, etc. Who is more of a victim? the truth is there is more than enough pain in the world to go around. What we should be asking is what are we thankful for? It’s real easy to dwell on the bad because it reaches out and knocks up side of the head. Good things are a lot more subtle and we don’t pay attention to them as much.
I don’t know where sexual abuse would really rank if you gathered a group representing everything bad that can happen to you. If you focus too much on it, you probably will see it as the worst thing in the world. In the event that’s the case, that’s probably all you will ever see. If you can step back and find something to be thankful for, than it probably doesn’t belong in the number one position. Having a sexually abused child is difficult, but there are worse things. If you are able to hug your child and tell them that you love them, than you have something to be thankful for.
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
Chances are, your sexual abuse situation will have at least one element that you couldn’t have possibly imagined. Or more likely 5 or 6. Occasionally these head scratchers make the news. Over the past couple of years the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office has had a policy to not disclose the names of Orthodox Jews arrested on sex offense charges. There have been various requests to get the names and details of 85 offenders during the past 3 years which have all been rejected. The rational is that due to the close knit nature of the Orthodox community, that disclosure of the offenders identity could in turn reveal the victim’s identity. Interesting!
The reality is that every community is close knit. In roughly 97% of sexual abuse cases, it is someone the victim knows well. If you take almost any victim and make a list of the people they interact with for at least an hour a few times a year and the name of their offender will be on the list. Orthodox communities are no different. Shielding the names of offenders doesn’t protect the identity of the victim. It allows offenders to be dealt with without public input, and in many cases that structure which allowed the abuse to take place acts to protect itself. Charges are reduced, offenders don’t show up on sex offender registries and abuse is likely to continue.
Protecting who’s identity?
Protecting the identity of offenders also often has a negative impact on the victim as well. Every day the news has stories of victims coming forward years after the abuse. Disclosure doesn’t happen easily for most victims. Usually it takes an event to push them to come forward. Usually it is knowing that someone else is at risk, or that someone else has come forward. It’s often easy to dismiss the claims of one person. It becomes harder when it’s 2,3, or 4 that come forward. This generally won’t happen when details are kept quiet. Offenders are much more likely to be released, charges dismissed, and the victims are left feeling cheated by the system.
Silence in abuse cases allows the conditions that allowed the abuse to continue. Basically the problem doesn’t exist if no one talks about it. In so doing, the reality of the problem continues, and nobody knows how big the problem is. Only about 15% of abuse cases are reported in the first place. Hindering the flow of information only helps keep that number low. This creates a false sense of security for the general public who doesn’t think they have a problem. In reality the only way to not have a problem, is for proper disclosure so the problem can be addressed.
http://forward.com/articles/155197/orthodox-abuse-suspects-get-exemption/
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
Sexual Abuse
survival has different definitions when it comes to life changing events. If you come out of a battle, plane crash, or tornado and are still in one piece and breathing that’s probably the most obvious level of survival. Obviously, this is a must from a perspective of continued existence. So the dust clears and you have lived to see another day, does this make you a survivor?
Let’s fast forward a few months or maybe a year. Is life back to business as usual? Or maybe you are drinking more, sleeping less, or just not able to concentrate as well as you used to. Conversely, maybe you have realized that you have been given a second chance that others didn’t get and that you need to do something with it. Has this event become a weight on your life. Or a foundation for you to build the rest of your life on?
Looking at the event a different way, do you see the event as being in the past. Or is it something that you see echoed in your daily activities, or as something that is destined to happen again? This is where the definition of survivor starts to get murky.
Different Types of Trauma
There are an unlimited combinations of experiences that people have after a traumatic event. When I was 17, I had a helicopter crash in back of my house. I was the only one there, and I was not successful in rescuing either of the occupants. It’s a very vivid image even though it happened over 35 years ago. Other than declining a couple helicopter rides over the years, it hasn’t altered the direction of my life, or how I interact with the world. Maybe it’s me, or it could be my perception of the likelihood of the event happening again.
With sexual abuse, the physical act, setting or participants are likely to present themselves in some context in the future. This is why sexual assault victims tend to relive their experiences more than others who experience traumatic events. With my helicopter incident, there are very few things that I associate to the event. With the various abuse incidents I am most familiar with, there are regular common reminders that often trigger a reaction.
Types of Survivors
So what type of survivors do you have in your family? Have you moved past the event, or is it something that follows you around waiting to be relived? Or better still have you built upon the experience and become a person that others look up to? I’ve learned over the years that often times the people who have lost the most are the ones who grew the most from the experience. We don’t have choices about the events that happen to us, but we do have choices about how we respond to them. Once you can answer the question what type of survivor you are the important question to ask is, what type of survivor do you want to be?
Let us know if we can help you dealing with your family’s sexual abuse victim situation. For ideas to get started please check out our book on what to do during the early days after disclosure.
