REPAIR Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest & Childhood Sexual Abuse

By Marjorie McKinnon and Marcie Taylor

R.E.P.A.I.R is Recognition, Entry, Process, Awareness, Insight, and Rhythm
Enter a Six-Stage Program with your 2- to 6-year-old child to cross the "Bridge of Recovery" and make available a whole new world of hope: Uncover and acknowledge feelings by discovering emotion Build self-esteem and optimism with the "Magic Mirror" Discern healthy and unhealthy messages Learn special games to rebuild courage and optimism Reveal inner states with picture drawing Break free from the confines of false shame Cultivate self-care skills and practices Learn about boundaries and bodies Return to the natural rhythm and flow of life
Therapists' Acclaim for the REPAIR system
"REPAIR for Kids provides a comprehensive, honest and passionate approach for children recovering from sexual abuse. Children will benefit from this book, and be encouraged to continue on their recovery journey." --Jill Osborne, Ed.S, author of Sam Feels Better Now
"I wish I had had something like this a long time ago for my sad and shamed 'little girl' within. I can't think of anything I'd change. You have covered it all and with wonderful sensitivity, perfect timing and terrific repair exercises. I love the cartoons and the colorfulness of your book as well." --Marcelle Taylor, MFT
"I found this book to be well thought out and written, and one that would be helpful for any child who has known the pain of sexual abuse. I wish a caring adult had shared this book with my siblings and myself, it would have helped ease our pain and sorrow." --Michael Skinner, musician and child mental health advocate
JNF053170 Juvenile Nonfiction : Social Issues - Sexual Abuse
FAM001010 Family & Relationships : Abuse - Child Abuse
PSY004000 Psychology : Developmental - Child

• Language: English
• Publisher: Loving Healing Press
• Release date: May 1, 2008
• ISBN: 9781615999330

Marjorie McKinnon

Marjorie McKinnon has been writing since the age of thirteen, when she wrote poetry to hide her pain. Despite her father's confession in her mid-thirties about an incestuous relationship he'd had with her that began when she was thirteen, she had buried all memories of the childhood trauma. She had run away from home when she was eighteen and spent the next 27 years going from one abuser to another. During that time she was hospitalized twice for suicide attempts, spent time in a women's shelter and raised four children as a single mother. During recovery she wrote about her experience and what it was like to emerge on the other side of "the bridge of recovery." It is a chronicle of growing up in small Midwestern towns in a Catholic family and of hiding her anguish behind words, poetry that she termed her inner voices. It is also a detailed account of the journey one takes in going from a place of despair to one of joy. That book, titled I Never Heard A Robin Sing became her first attempt to publish. When Marjorie was half way through recovery she found out that her two older daughters had been sexually abused by her second husband. Her youngest daughter had been raped at gunpoint while working at a fast food place when she was 17. This so totally accents the reality that child sexual abuse is a multi-generational problem. Unable to sell her memoir, she spent several years writing other books: a fiction trilogy, two other novels, four volumes of poetry, and 14 non-fiction works, six of which have been pubished. Marjorie re-read her own first person account to re-walk the path she had taken. She never realized at the time how blessed she was, for that path, though rugged, was straight, and in retrospect provided her with invaluable help to spend three years creating the REPAIR program. Loving Healing Press has published six of her books: REPAIR Your Life: A Program for Recovery from Incest & Childhood Sexual Abuse, REPAIR For Kids, REPAIR For Toddler, REPAIR For Teens, REPAIR Your Life Workbook and It's Your Choice! Decisions That Will Change Your Life. Hello My Name is Marjorie, a book she is currently working on is an email account of her courtship with Tom McKinnon, her husband, who she met on the Internet while doing genealogy research on McKinnons (her name was also McKinnon). Tom did the illustrations for the two the children's versions of her REPAIR books. They now live in the Sedona, AZ area. Marjorie is also the founder of The Lamplighter Movement, a rapidly growing international movement for recovery from child sexual abuse that emphasizes the importance of REPAIRing the damage. Most of her chapters are using her REPAIR program as a model for recovery. Currently there are 92 Lamplighter Movement chapters in thirteen countries including 18 in Africa. Marjorie is trying to get Lamplighter chapters in all of the women's prisons. So far they have two, one in Chino, CA and one in Gadsden, Florida.She is also trying to get chapters established in high schools and women's shelters. The Lamplighter's website is at www.thelamplighters.org

Book preview

Introduction

I am a non-professional whose only credentials are my personal journey through incest recovery. Several years ago, I realized that someone who had walked the same road could prove to be a sensitive and pragmatic resource for those who are trying to heal. I know so well what goes on inside the heart, the mind and the soul of one who has been sexually abused as a child.

My program, REPAIR, is the result of several years of note-taking, journalizing, meditation, and piecing together parts of my own life, as well as conversations with other incest survivors across the country. As I worked my way through recovery, I kept notes in anticipation that someday what I was learning might help others. When I began this book, I re-read my own first-person account, Let Me Hurt You and Don't Cry Out, to re-walk the path I had taken. I never realized at the time how blessed I was, for that path, although rugged, was straight, and in retrospect provided me with invaluable help to create this program.

I have met many incest survivors during my years of recovery, both locally and in traveling to other states. Everywhere I‘ve been, I talked about what I was going through. It proved to be a catharsis. Initially, people were shocked that I spoke of what had happened so openly, and as if it were not my fault. My comment, It wasn't, at first proved startling. Little by little, I noticed that others came forward with their stories. Sometimes they spoke in hushed whispers, giving furtive looks as if they might be punished. Other times, they spoke boldly, trying to escape from a prison. When I asked questions and responded with sympathy, they became more daring: now giving details, talking of feelings, often sharing about others they knew who had also survived. I tracked coincidences, made notes on their needs and their pain, and asked questions about resources available in their areas and what it might take to make them whole again.

When I began the outline for the program, I knew that it cried out for a title that aptly described what needed to be done. Repair was the first word that came to my mind. It literally means to restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken; to restore to a sound or healthy state. What better word describes our goal in the case of childhood sexual abuse? In particular, I knew that it wasn't enough to rid ourselves of the pain; we needed to fill the void with something good. I also knew that the ultimate reward was making healthy choices and living a life free from the despair that kept us bound by dark shadows, doomed to live in a three-sided prison.

After spending a year with my initial therapist, I was on my own. Although I eventually found another, most of my success in recovery was due to following my own instincts and wading through the trial and error of many different groups, seminars, books, and CDs. The techniques that I devised, some of which I had no idea at the time would contribute monumentally to getting healthy, were fine-tuned. Developing the stages came naturally as I thought back on what had happened during the five years that I was in both recovery and post recovery.

* * *

Most of us have learned ways over the years to cope with depression, emotional pain and shadowy memories that bring anxiety. Some of you are saying, I'm still angry, but my life is OK. But is it? In this program you're going to ask yourself some hard questions. Hopefully, by the end of it you'll see things more clearly.

If you don't need this program or one like it, I'm happy for you. I wish no one did. Few people who were sexually violated at a young age are able to go through life without getting help and still be happy. My goal is to help you heal, help you move away from the past, and give you tools to make adjustments so that your life can be everything you want it to be. I've been where you were and my life changed forever because of it. Now, I'd like you to be who I am today, the happiest person I know.

I'm going to begin this book with a story. Mine. Hopefully, everyone reading will identify with parts of it and realize they're in the right place. We all have stories that are different. We all have stories that are the same. Repercussions in the life of an incest victim ripple like waves in a body of water, ones that eventually turn into riptides, undercurrents and sometimes tidal waves.

My story is a classic example.

In July of 1988, I walked into the office of therapist Marci Taylor, a specialist in the field of childhood sexual abuse. The damage done by my incest had accelerated to the point of despair. It was six months before my third marriage and I had a long history of relationships with alcoholics and abusers, two of them former husbands. Suicidal since my early teens, I had been hospitalized for two nervous breakdowns in my twenties, one the result of a failed suicide attempt. I had hidden my pain behind too much alcohol, promiscuity, compulsive behavior, obsessive relationships and extremes of emotional highs and lows. Only medication, intermittently taken, had kept me functioning for almost twenty-five years.

Two years earlier, I had been engaged to my daughter's father-in-law. Chuck was the first healthy male in my life, a man whose primary aim was making me happy. He became convinced that something traumatizing had happened in my childhood that I didn't remember. His comment, How could someone as wonderful as you wind up with so many abusive men, not only went right over my head, but irritated me as he began a personal crusade to find out what had happened. I retaliated with anger, tried to end the engagement, and when he refused, began an affair outside the relationship. His response was, I'll never leave you except through death. Within months, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Filled with shame and fear for Chuck, I ended the affair and took care of him while he was ill. Even then, a few days before he died, still unable to control my own sexual addiction, I slept not only with another man, but a married one. After Chuck's death my guilt and shame at what I had done caused despair so great I wished only that I had never failed in my many suicide attempts.

Within a few weeks, I was living with the man who would ultimately set off a trail of such severe abuse that I had to choose between death and entering recovery. I had hit bottom. Having read my private journals without permission, he used my descriptions of previous lovers and infidelities as a whip to taunt me, especially the night I had spent in bed with a married man while Chuck lay dying. Like Pavlov's dog, every time he rang the bell by shaming me about my past, I obeyed whatever his current demand was, for I learned quickly that giving in caused the torment to cease. Subject to his whims, I lived like a prisoner, crippled by his several-times-a-day sexual addiction—which quickly turned into brutal rapes—his need to control what I wore, who I spoke with, what I said, and even whether I laughed or not.

Within months, my beautiful home looked like a battleground, with bathroom doors he had split in half when I cowered behind them hiding from his rages and sexual obsessions, broken furniture and holes in walls, all evidence of my out-of-control emotions from the terror of his rapes. Once he forced me into making sex videotapes by taunting me about previous infidelities. In the process, I lost my mind as I lay in a fetal position on the floor calling for my mother. Before we'd been together a year, his need for frequent middle-of-the-night sex was causing painful and confusing flashbacks.

One time, years earlier, in the office of a therapist, I had spied a cartoon. It was of a woman standing in a cage with her hands clenched on the bars, looking outward with terror. The cage had only three sides. That cartoon was so painful that I averted my eyes every time I saw it. It haunted me for years, and became one of the spurs to my entering recovery, for now I could see that I was that woman.

My self-image was so poor that once, in a department store, I saw a woman on the other side of the room and thought desperately, I would give anything if only I looked like her. As I walked closer, I realized that her body movements matched mine. I'd been staring in a mirror! Even then, I waved my arms and made faces, then finally touched the glass before I became convinced it was me. You'd think it would have caused me to look at myself in a different light. It didn't. I wasn't ready to believe that there was anything beautiful about me. Even my frequent quip over the years, If you took sex out of my life, I'd be a near-perfect person, did not encourage me to see that although I had a dark side, there were many gems beneath my surface.

Despite the use of various therapists over the years who had probed my life, none had ever identified incest as the culprit. In my early thirties, my father had admitted to his wrongdoing, making the comment, It really wasn't so bad, kiddo, they do it in the Appalachian district all the time. Shortly before he died, he again brought it up, then abruptly dropped it. Both times I buried the reality, the pain too monumental to consider. I was not even sure what the word incest meant and other than a nightmare I'd had when I was younger, one where a steamroller was suffocating me as I lay in my bottom bunk, I had no memory of such things happening. I had relived the nightmare hundreds of times throughout my life, on each occasion waking up screaming as I felt the paralyzing terror of being overpowered by an unknown force. The nightmares didn't cease until after my father's death in 1985.

Now, shaking with continuous tremors, I turned once more to therapy. This time it was at the insistence of my family doctor, who had been convinced for many years that incest was the source of my problems.

Marci began my treatment with several sessions of discussions concerning my childhood. I gave her the same story I had given the others. I was the oldest daughter in a Midwestern Catholic family. My father had delivered me in the middle of a blizzard in northern Minnesota. As the years went by, his interest in me became obsessive. My mother, worn down from having four children in as many years, turned her fifth child, a daughter, over to me to raise. At the age of eight, I had become the family housekeeper and at the age of nine, a mother. When I was thirteen I had the nightmare that was to haunt me for so many years.

For reasons I didn't understand at the time, during this period our family life changed dramatically. Mom and Dad discarded any semblance of love and togetherness. My siblings and I became like mutilated soldiers in the midst of a war, as we wandered through our days in a continual state of anxiety and terror of Dad. He began a crusade to prove me no good, referring to me as unclean. Most of the time Mom lay in bed sobbing or in an alcoholic-like stupor where she had me shave her legs, bathe her, and care for her as if she were in the midst of a debilitating illness. I spiraled into despair, becoming not only manic depressive, but suicidal.

I had come from a long line of patriarchal families with fathers who had a strong sense of their own importance and mothers who subjugated their needs to those of the head of the family. We walked on eggs if Dad was in the house, lest we offend in some way. His word was not only law, but any opinions contrary to his were punishable. This way of life duplicated my father's growing-up years as well as my mother's. It felt normal to me. My mother's motto was: Even when your father is wrong, he's right. A few years later she developed breast cancer, and Dad convinced her that all doctors were quacks, depriving her of the medical care that might have saved her life. She died angry, resentful, and

Reviews for REPAIR Your Life

[americaseditor · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is a workbook for children who have suffered sexual abuse. The book has valuable points and instructions for adults. However, the vocabulary level is not consistent. The length of some passages might be overwhelming for a child, but working through it repetitiously, as the book suggests, could have some value for children. The subject of molestation is not directly approached, so much of the material in this book might be useful to religious parents who want to help a child who has experienced a traumatic event. This book should be a supplemental resource, not a main one.

[moxiehart · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Before I start this review, I would like to state that I fully support this book's intentions--who wouldn't support helping children recover from sexual abuse? Unfortunately, the book suffers in the execution.The book is formatted as a workbook that's full of exercises for young children to practice. The exercises are based on the concept of "REPAIR," which stands for recognition, entry, process, awareness, insight, and rhythm. The acronym is difficult to remember and I wonder if I, as a 25 year-old am having trouble remembering it, if a 6 or 7 year-old will be able to remember it. Stylistically, there are many grammar errors and the author is certainly fond of ellipses. Children mimic what they read and I wouldn't want to have my hypothetical child pick up these habits.At one point, the author compares molestors to monsters, which I found troubling. Molestors are real, that's what makes them so frightening, and children should be given the tools to avoid them. Molesters shouldn't be given a Voldemort-like power.Also, she says that, "Happy people have not had anything bad happen to them" (16). This is a bizarre claim--there is no one on earth that hasn't had something bad happen to them. The difference is that happy people have learned healthy coping skills.Finally, this book isn't secular. There are references to guardian angels and the Serenity Prayer. I'd find it alienating if I were a child of another faith or from an athiest family.On the plus side, the many font changes should keep childrens' attention. There also are exercises to practice dealing with situations involving bullies and manipulative people.To be honest, I went to the author's webpage, thelamplighters.org, to look up her credentials. While I think that she earnestly cares about the well-being of sexual abuse survivors, I found her lack of scholarly credentials to be disturbing. I would rather take advice from someone that was a licensed social worker, therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist, who had done clinical research to discover what was the best course to treat victims of sexual abuse.

[neilandlisa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had a very difficult time reading this book, as it stirred up very unpleasant memories, but I agree with other reviewers. I have mixed feelings about it as well. The author is so well-meaning I feel bad saying anything negative about it, but the title alone took me aback. It's pretty hard (impossible?) to "repair" or "recover" from the damage from sexual abuse and incest, but maybe that's nitpicky. Bigger problems rest with the graphics and inconsistent voice; is this a book for children in therapy or is it for adults? Either way, I think this would be a helpful read for parents or guardians who are trying to help an abused child. It would make a good companion to other books on the subject.

[discerningmedia · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is a workbook for children who have suffered sexual abuse. The book has valuable points and instructions for adults. However, the vocabulary level is not consistent. The length of some passages might be overwhelming for a child, but working through it repetitiously, as the book suggests, could have some value for children. The subject of molestation is not directly approached, so much of the material in this book might be useful to religious parents who want to help a child who has experienced a traumatic event. This book should be a supplemental resource, not a main one.

[jotoyo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read through most of the material in this book, but it was my wife who gave me the rating. She has been trained in this field and had heard about this book through her work. She said the book was well done, and said that the illustrations were good, as they were simplistic enough for a child to interpret. Since the book is intended as a tool to be used with other forms of therapy it may not suit every child or situation, but she felt that it was a big step in the right direction.However, it is difficult to know whether it is good until one has ecperience in using it, and that has not happened yet with my wife. The whole topic of sexual abuse in children is difficult to discuss as adults and so I will leave the merits of the book to the professionals. With this book and other materials, and their training and respect for children, children can be helped. That is the most important thing to remember.

[vampireeat · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Children's materials are hardly my forte, and this book was somewhat difficult for me to get through. As the subtitle suggest, the book is not really in a linear format; it acts as a sort of a series of different strategies for getting a child to talk about being sexually abused. Only it doesn't. The book is really aimed at getting a child talking about their emotions, presumably one who isn't talking very much because of a situation of sexual abuse. I mean, that's my guess. It really could be applied towards getting a child talking about their emotions in general. It uses a model called REPAIR, which also stems from the book's title. In implementing the REPAIR model, the first step: R for 'Recovery' - has to make the assumption that the child is broken. Indeed, many of the early mentions in the title speak of the child needing to be 'fixed.' I wasn't really a fan of using this type of metaphor for a child, especially because the book reinforces the idea that nothing is wrong with them over and over again. It gives a mixed signal; the child is broken, but nothing is wrong with them. I think that can lead to confusion from the child who has definitely already suffered enough. Using the REPAIR model, the child is also compared to a stepped on garden plant (p.16). If you take care of the plant, talk to it, etc. it can be REPAIRED! the book tells us. I have a problem with comparing abused children to stomped on flora, especially if I'm expected to read this idea aloud to the child as the text intends.The author includes a guide for adults using the title towards the beginning. One of the steps includes encouraging a child to talk about natural language, i.e. penis, breast. So it becomes confusing for me when you read on in the book and the text seemingly avoids using this type of language. I think a child might feel more comfortable using natural language if the words were spoken by an adult administering the program or stated in the text itself first. Ideally, both would probably be key. This at least gives the child a point of reference so they can feel more comfortable speaking this way. I also think the title should have a little bit more of a guide for adults at the beginning. It encourages adult to speak to children 'on their level of language' ... but gives no tips or hints how. Several generalized statements like this throughout made me feel frustrated while reading. I ultimately cannot give this book a completely low rating because of the activities that are included. Several of them are good and even clever at getting the child to talk; some are just 'write down your feelings' exercises, while others give multiple choice questions. Many would probably get a child's creative process going which would no doubt get them talking and, ultimately, feeling more comfortable with the adult administering the program. If you can take one thing from this text, take the activities. I think if a child isn't talking, and you need to try to get them to tell you what's happened, these activities can help accomplish that. The workbook format with fun, colorful pictures throughout are also a nice touch. This gives a child the ability to do the activities independently which is good for the intended range of ages 6 to 12.

[helcura_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have mixed feelings about this book.One of the hardest things for adults who are working with children who have been sexually abused is to know what to do, and this book offers a series of basic self-esteem exercises that appear to provide a road map. The book has brightly colored pictures, a relentlessly upbeat tone (exclamation marks pop up throughout the book like dandelions), and clear instructions. It could easily be a useful adjunct to customized therapy, or it might be used by a non-professional with guidance from a professional.It is not, however, a replacement for therapy. The language is too difficult for children at the lower end of the recommended age range (6-12) and too patronizing for children at the upper end. The activities (affirmations, journaling, etc.) are too generalized and only vaguely address actual abuse. (There is commentary on "yucky" touching, but no clear references to appropriately named body parts.) Sexually abused children need a great deal of help which is customized to their individual situations and this book is not a place to start, and most definitely not a place to end.

[heather19_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have to admit that when I recieved this Early Reviewer book, a part of me went "what the heck am I doing?". I am not a child, nor was I ever abused. How could I possibly read this book and connect with the message within these pages? The answer became clear as I began reading: The same way I do with every other good self-help book. This book is geared toward ages 6 to 12, so it is written in a simple language that children will understand. The context may be overwhelming at first to children, but the calm and child-friendly mode of this book helps to take it one step at a time. Colorful pictures and simple analogies will help children open up and understand the steps to recovery. There are fun lists and excercises to fill out that will focus their attention on the good parts of life and of themselves.I definitely think this is a VERY important book for any child who has been sexually abused.