The Shadow

last updated 7/23/99

I'm thinking of the Jungian concept of the shadow--the part of each of us that we don't want to admit is there. For me, in my healing process, the hardest part of the shadow to face is the parts of me I rejected because I didn't want to be like my abusers. I have to face, not only my sense that when I look in the mirror I see my abusers (specifically my mother and my grandmother--see female-female abuse), but also that I too have the impulse to abuse. I thank God that I haven't acted on that.

I feel the need to write about this, both as a way of accepting those parts of myself and because I feel like I am unacceptable and horrible and I want to see whether people turn away if I show the bad stuff.

I don't think I am the only one struggling with these issues and I wish it could be acknowledged by the community. Please think carefully about whether this is material that you want to read. I don't want to be a lightening rod for people who feel something different and I am not able to reach out to perpetrators. This page is intended for people who, like me, find themselves in their healing process needing to face impulses to abuse that they have not acted on. I believe you and I are not alone. An overview of my experiences and feelings follows the spoiler, telling the bad stuff though without graphic details.

I don't remember any awareness of such issues before I had children. Looking back, I think there was something abusive hidden in the way I tickled my younger sisters, but it didn't cross any obvious lines. I didn't babysit, and once I went away to college, I wasn't around children much.

When I had children, I was aware occasionally of intrusive thoughts of wanting to hurt my children sexually. At that time, I knew only that I had been abused by my grandfather, and I tried to deal with the intrusive thoughts not by hating myself but by hating him for putting such horrible pictures in my mind. If it was possible, I would leave the room. I knew I wouldn't actually act out my thoughts, but I feared that my children might somehow sense my tension.

Just before I started this round of therapy, my husband and I did some marital counseling. At that time, I told my husband and the therapist about the intrusive thoughts. My husband seemed to think that wasn't surprising given my abuse history, and he reassured me that he saw me as a good parent. I also talked about it with a priest. My church (Episcopal) has the tradition of formal confession, but the priest suggested that I probably didn't need to confess something that I didn't do that wasn't my fault. That worked for me. I needed to tell someone, but I didn't feel the kind of self-blame that would be relieved by formal confession.

As I have walked the road of healing the last three-and-a-half years, I have had to face these issues more-and-more. After I came to understand myself as DID, and got to know my system, I became aware of an alter who wanted to be like my grandmother. That alter talked about deviant sexuality with adults, more wishing to recreate being abused than to become an abuser. Just to see myself acting out the personal style of my grandmother scared me a lot, though I never saw that alter do harm.

I think there were things buried deep inside me that I didn't dare acknowledge or allow to come to the surface as alters. The way my particular system worked was that I needed to integrate, and have the extra strength and safety that gave me, before I could open my scariest feelings. Within a few months after my initial integration, I was struggling to face how I was like my abusers and to admit the fact that I had impulses to abuse that were part of me, not interjects (something put into me by my abusers). I told two other people at that time, and they both told me things that they felt ashamed about in raising their own children. I was amazed by the strength of their response and felt less alone.

After getting memories of my own abuse, particularly by my mother and grandmother, I became more troubled by the times when being around my children triggered memories and thoughts of abusing. I am very thankful to a pediatrician who suggested that my daughter, even at age three, could put diaper rash ointment on herself if she was sore. The principle of letting my kids take care of their own bodies as much as possible once they were toilet-trained let me minimize the situations in which I was most uncomfortable. I tell my kids not to come into my room naked. That makes me more comfortable, but I worry that I will give them the message that they should be ashamed of their bodies. I guess it hasn't had that effect--they aren't very good at remembering.

I went to a workshop at the end of May where I had to draw a picture of the part of me I most don't want others to see, and I drew the abuser. I avoided that for awhile until those feeling were further triggered when my son had eye muscle surgery (the raw form of those feelings can be found on a page I wrote on my son's surgery). I felt somehow that I had caused him to be hurt, by making the decision that he should have this surgery (which hopefully will give him binocular vision). And I was triggered by how helpless and dependent and trusting my son was, even at age 9. I had some of these feelings before when my son had bladder surgery at age 4, but I didn't have any way to process them at that time.

When I had a chance to deal with those triggered feelings in therapy, I was able to open that part of myself to the point where I actually expressed, in words, my desire to abuse. It was terribly, terribly scary--when I came out of expressing that part of myself my immediate frantic reaction was "I can't live with that." I meant that I couldn't bear to know that those feelings were inside me.

When my therapist tried to reassure me, I told him not to reach out to me because I didn't want him to be contaminated by me. Finally, I began to be able to face that my task was to accept that this was part of me, though I still had a lot of fears that anyone who knew would be repulsed by me. I let my husband read what I wrote about the session and he said it didn't change his feelings about me. He also said that it helped to have a context to understand what had come out--he had dealt before with my struggles with these feelings.

The next session I spoke further of the things that I am most ashamed of: Times when I have done harm unintentionally. I even told some specific thoughts I have of hurting my children sexually. I was hysterical with shame, wanting to go away and not contaminate my kids and my T with the repulsiveness that is me.

My T said everyone has such thoughts, but that it is much scarier for me because I have experienced the reality when I was abused. My sense of shame about these thoughts is so deep and overwhelming that I can't believe that everyone has such thoughts. Maybe in passing, but not as it is for me, knowing that I could do it, knowing that I am like the people who hurt me. I know that what matters on the outside is that I haven't done it, that I don't act on those thoughts. I do value protecting my kids more than anything else, but I feel that while I do what is right on the outside, the real me is unacceptable.

I learned a lot about my abusers from listening to that part of me who wants to abuse. When I was speaking those feelings, I said that only if I became an abuser myself would I cease to be the victim, cease to live in fear. When I moved out of those feelings and reacted against them, I said that I was willing to be weak and in pain forever, rather than be strong, if being strong meant abusing my children. Clearly, the part of me who currently has the feelings of wanting to abuse holds a key part of my strength, and I must find a way to claim that strength without becoming an abuser.

I don't know what I need. I want to know that I am not alone, that people will not turn away from me in disgust. And yet when people tell me I am not so bad, I don't believe them. I guess it comes down to somehow finding a way to accept even that as part of myself. Writing this and making it a part of my page is a step in that direction.

back to top

home | pam | pem | female-female abuse | book reviews |