Amy: Her Journey From Abuse

By Abbey Strauss

We hear her anger and fear. The interaction with the therapist is sprightly, direct, piercing, and yet healing. She finally allows herself to reveal her real fragility; afterwards she begins to psychologically grow. She deals with transference towards her therapist, of her sexuality, the meaning of relationships, and her liaisons with life in general.

“More than just reading about what is needed in the therapy process -- it’s actually watching it go step by step. There were times when I wanted to join in. This is what therapy should be like.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbey Strauss
• Release date: Jun 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301954742

Abbey Strauss

He has a master's degree in social work but now practices general psychiatry. His books are the product of three decades of doing psychotherapy. His professional work also involved clinical research and forensic psychiatry, including the publication of the book 'Malingery - Stealing the Truth'. He served six years as a member of the Board of Directors for Nobel Prize winning Physician's for Social Responsibility. He devotes much work to environmental issues, was interviewed by HBO Real Sports in 2008, Dateline NBC,has hosted numerous radio shows dealing with all aspects of health, was twice awarded the NAMI Exemplary Psychiatrist Award, is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and held and still holds various positions with local and state psychiatric and medical associations. He also hosts an educational podcast for the Florida Psychiatric Society at www.interviewlibrary.info

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AMY

Her Journey From Abuse

A women’s struggle with incest and love

Abbey Strauss, M.S.W., M.D.

Dedicated to all those who taught me how to listen

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 Abbey Strauss

Boca Raton, Florida and East Sandwich, Massachusetts

Email: [e-mail]

ISBN 9781301954742

A softcover print version is available from www.pocketbook.com

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. It cannot be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share it with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

Session One

So you must be Amy. Please come in.

Thank you.

Sit wherever.

David set this appointment for me. I guess you two spent a lot of time talking about me. I hope you understand that I'm here with a little trepidation, a little resistance, and a little hope. Do I sound rehearsed? David said you accused him of being rehearsed whenever he came here.

A lot.

I could tell.

By the way, this is a great huge window. I love it; the view of the park is marvelous.

Anyway, it seemed that all he did was talk about his sessions with you and what it was doing to his life.

That's good. But now the focus is on you.

I know. I'm sorry, but it's a bit unsettling for me to be here. I just don't know where to start and what notions you already have about me, you know, that sort of thing.

That's fair. But I'll try to put my past aside and listen to you. I'm sure I’ll slip up at times, but let's give it a try. Okay? I’ll work at listening to you and not to what I've already heard.

Okay.

Well, I'm David's Amy. I suppose you should know that we've spent countless hours discussing things and so he's given me lots of insight into myself, but there are some points that I can't discuss with him. It might hurt him too much, and some things in life are best left unshared, if you know what I mean.

I do.

Fine.

Well, okay, I suppose it's time to just begin…

I am, well, I, I am the product of other people's indifference.

Can you be more precise?

I will, in time. Oh, there are just so many places to start.

Then let me help you.

Okay, I'd like that.

How did you feel about coming here?

It's okay.

But not something that really excites you, right?

Right. It's something David thought I could benefit from. I suppose you agree with him.

Maybe.

Let me make a quick observation. You seem kind of cool or distant here. Like you'd like to be somewhere else.

Yes.

But yet you drop me one of the heaviest opening lines I’ve ever heard, that you're the product of other people's indifference. I'm not sure where to focus with you.

The ‘indifference’ notion is something David and I talk about a lot.

I'm sure.

It's not a clear opening premise, is it?

No, not at all.

Kinda like we’re bouncing all over the place, right?

Well yes, we usually start with a better defined problem.

Well okay, let's take a breath.

My problem is me, and it is David, and it is my past, and it is my future, and it is how I avoid certain topics, and there is one topic that I avoid looking at, and being here is, yes, oh yes, it is scary because you made David look at some damn painful things. Which was great for him and I got a better David for it, and I thank you with all my heart, but I don't think I'm as tightly built as him, and I'm afraid I'll not survive your inquiries, but I want to because it's for David too, and I can't let him down, but not to come here will also let him down, which means I have to do one of the scariest things ever in my life and, hell yes, I do bounce all over the place, and David says that's because I am never dealing with the core problem. Oh I don't know!

Do you really think you can help me?

Whew. I'll never be able to keep notes if it all comes out that fast.

As far as helping you, yes, I can, but only if a few rules apply. First, let me be the doctor and you banish David to the friend status. He is relieved from working.

That's okay. You're in and David's out. What else?

You have to let me do the pacing.

No run-on sentences. David and you must have really talked a lot about me.

Now, let me hear a bit about you.

Fine. But I have a peculiar feeling here. I almost feel as if we should already be friends, as if we already know each other. Maybe it's like meeting a character from a novel that I've studied. I just don't know.

No, we do know of each other so there already is a bond of sorts. It's similar to meeting a television announcer that you watch for a long time. But now we get to know the behind the scenes person. Please, tell me about you.

Okay, I come from a half dysfunctional and half a very functional family. Unfortunately the dysfunctional half managed to control most of my life.

David told you about my father, didn't he?

Yes, he told me.

It's an ugly part of my life.

Incest usually is.

I've never really gotten over it. Can't forget it.

Not surprising. But it's not a matter of forgetting – the memories will always be there. It's a matter of structuring your emotions and thoughts so the bad doesn't rule and remain sullied even with large inputs of good. Our goal is to put it all in a package that has less influence and only sways you less than it does now. But forgotten? No, never. It’d be foolish to think that would ever happen.

I've been therapy before and after a while they all told me that I just have to accept it.

Told, no doubt, to you by someone who probably never felt a rape.

I don't know.

Ever been to a peer group counseling with other sexual abuse victims?

Yes, oh, many times. It's interesting to see how they survive, but I think it's too often the misery likes company scene, which means that we don't feel so dirty or responsible because it happened to others. Some people actually forgive their attackers. They still have contact with them. I, uh, I doubt I could ever do that.

How old were you when the rape occurred?

Thirteen.

And I will take it you were still a virgin?

I was still a child. Virginity wasn't the question. He didn't rape a woman, he raped a girl child.

You know, I can sit here and replay that over and over in my head. It comes to me so easily. I have a harder time replaying my son's birth; isn’t it amazing how things that make us feel bad become so much stronger than a memory of things which were good?

It’s probably true.

Can I be honest with you?

Of course.

There's a word that haunts me.

And it's probably been with you for a long time.

It's like the song which goes on and on in my head.

Can I make a guess?

Sure.

It has a dirty connotation.

How'd you know?

It fits.

Do you know the word?

No, I don't, but it doesn't matter because I know the meaning. What word is it?

Defiled.

That's more than dirty or foul. That's a religious word. The defile is something we read about in the Bible.

That's where I learned it.

Or heard it.

Heard it is more accurate. Then I learned about it.

And then, somewhere, you learn even more about it and what it is intended to mean. There is a vile, wretched or damaged goods quality to it.

Yes. Okay. Yes, then it begin to sink in. And I remember it as clearly today and thinking about how defiled I was. Of course I could never tell anyone, which was just as bad. God forbid!

I remember playing with some girlfriends and while they were giggling I kept thinking if you come to my room again tonight…and I was afraid one of those friends would know that I was defiled would they still be allowed to me my friend -- but I couldn't tell them, of course, but I wanted to tell them because I had to know if, because I was defiled, would they still like me, and the devil himself called himself ‘defile’ and he kept calling it out to me, ceaselessly, blaring it, laughing at it, mocking me that I was defiled.

That must've been a never abating torment.

Torture. It also set the tone of my life.

How so?

Because I realized how I was being tortured by three things, by actual ‘fatherly fucking’ -- you don't know how long it took before I was actually able to say that -- and then the impact of just the label, you know, just the vile word by itself that I was defiled, and then by my own hatred at me that I allowed it to happen.

So you know what I did?

No.

I decided to devote my life to the study of unfair labels. So I became a linguist. I needed to understand how our society evolved into being so prejudicial and why we still use words that can hurt so much. So damn much. And why we insist on continuing lousy conversations.

So what else do I do? I follow love with the psychiatrist. David, David, David – but for you to have chosen a different vocation. My old analyst would have a heyday!

But I need to know why I suffer so much.

Look, I'm innocent. You do know that, don't you? I'm innocent, yet they call me defiled.

And is part of it that you aren't sure if they aren't right?

They can't be right. I never knew I was defiled until they told me so. Here, look, see, I can touch this body. It's a good body. I didn't defile it. I didn't defile me! I didn't do it! I didn't!

But there was sex.

He had intercourse with me. I didn't have intercourse with him.

Not in the eyes of the labelers.

Right.

Not in the eyes of those we value.

I'm not guilty.

And our job is to prove that to yourself and the world.

No, just to me, I'll take on the world later.

Fair enough.

Session Two

It's been an incredible week.

Tell me about it.

David filed for divorce and moved in with me when my son is with his father. It's so nice to sleep with him, to cook his meals – I love it. It's just so natural to be with him.

That's nice.

But that's just part of it. You just can't believe what happened!

No I can't imagine. Please tell me.

Well, we got into a big old discussion about divorce and how hard it is and what people will say about us, all that type of thing, when he pulls out a book on Jewish divorce laws. I couldn't resist reading it.

It sounds like him, to ‘just happen’ to have that type of book on the bookshelf. What did you read?

In a moment!

Okay…

Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to be so rude and snippy.

Anyway, so we were talking about divorce when he pulled down the book. I've given a lot of thought to what we said last week here. I even went to church last week; I supposed to look for some solace.

Did you find some?

Actually, yes. See, this whole week just came together. The priest spoke of St. Paul and used this quote, here, let me find it, it's in my purse. Okay: And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.

Explain what it means.

Paul was ill, no one knows really what upset him, but it is thought that he had some chronic psychosomatic disorder and some medical problems too, but his distressed soul was sick enough to make him suffer, yet it never disabled him.

Like you, perhaps?

Obviously. Isn't it obvious that that's me?

You seem a little annoyed that you didn't say it before I did.

Well, I didn't mean it that way. I'm sorry for being so rude. Hey, that's twice I’m apologizing to you. I'm really sorry. I think it just hit me how much I was like Paul and I'd heard that phrase about the thorn in the flesh for so long, and only this week did I first realize what it meant and how it applied to me.

You seem a little unsettled now.

I suppose so.

Don't stop. You seem to’ve come to a full stop. Do you feel that bad?

Oh, this happens all the time. I, I just burst apart inside and fall down a lot. It's just me. I'll get over it real soon.

No, were not letting it go so easily. Tell me more.

You hit home last week so