May It Be Safe to Be True

Dr. Nandi Hetenyi
Sep 30, 2018

Photo credit: Pinterest

There are many reasons women do not report. There are many reasons child abuse goes unreported.

And, domestic abuse.

We live in a culture that denies the reality of child abuse, emotional neglect, sexual trauma…pretty much all trauma.

It is denied while, at the same time, perpetrated by the same system denying it.

When Freud was getting started, he had been researching and putting together data based on the women (wifes, sisters, daughters of colleagues) he was seeing in his practice. He came to the conclusion that the collection of symptoms that they were presenting was related to sexual trauma/abuse.

He wrote a paper about this and had it published. And, of course, the society he was a part of, the crew of cultural influencers at the time, were outraged because it implied that THEY were in fact abusing and molesting their children.

Freud would have lost his reputation. His career was at risk. So, he retracted the paper and wrote a new one.

Diagnosing women as hysterics.

Yes, hysteria. Hysterics — as in crazy, too emotional, delusional, imbalanced, not to be trusted, sensitive, etc.

Being a woman became a pathology rather than seeing issue with the child molesters and rapists.

The birth of psychological gas lighting my friends. It still really eludes me to this day why we do not talk about this more.

THIS is why no one believes people when they report things or share things, including mothers denying their children because the weight of what it would mean is too much to bear.

So, we deny it. Many carry the burden silently.

This is literally what is STILL happening. Child abuse. Emotional abuse. Sexual trauma. Rape. Assault. The people who perpetrate this have a lot invested in keeping it quiet in a culture of denial.

A culture that is fueled by shame, control and power. Shame is projected. Shame is denied. Shame is feared. To face the reality of the impact of ones actions. To face the reality of one’s traumas. These are scary, they trigger shame. The social structure has a lot invested in avoiding shame yet it is shame that fuels most of our problems.

Reality is denied. When it comes up, there is an outrage, we see it, we see the reality, there are people who carry the pain and shame (survivors, addicts, healers) and others that deny it. Our world is split.

There somehow needs to be a safe space for this split to mend, for the shame to be given air and space to breathe. For the grief of a millennia of inherited trauma and shame and pain to be released. It feels huge.

Somehow this history needs to be changed. Somehow women and children and men need to be handed by their dignity with the truth.

Truth is one of the languages of love.

There is no love in a realm of denial and repression and fear.

Women, you are not crazy.

It was not your fault if you experienced abuse as a child.

Every human is in pain.

Pain creates a loop of more pain.

People are in pain.

We need to stop hurting each other.

This is my constant prayer.

We can do better.

I know we can.

It starts with truth.

May it be safe to be true.

Dr. Nandi Hetenyi
https://medium.com