Redeem the Silence: An Unintended Journey

By Sherrill Anderson Nielsen

There is a silence that is killing us.Millions are impacted by
rape and sexual violence andare plagued with struggles
they cant talk about.The time is now to start the healing
and Redeem the Silence.
Redeem the Silence is a powerful expose on the subject of rape in the
21st century. With stories that are raw and riveting, the dialogue tears
at ones emotions. A subject that is almost overpowering, it is almost
unspeakable. But that is the point of Sherrills book: the subject of rape
must not be unspeakable because it happens every day while our silence
protects the guilty and torments the victims. Sherrill Nielsen tells the truth
about sexual violation and blows the cover off cultural taboos.

JIM COFFARO, Senior Pastor at New Song Foursquare Church, San Jose, CA

A pathway to healing! Authentic, no formulas, compassionate, real
life guidance for those who have been abused, and those who love them.

DR. DAVID SMITH, Lead Navigator, Theodyssey Group

Gripping, insightful, Sherrill Nielsen counsels from a survivors perspective.

MIKE YORKEY, co-author of Every Mans Battle and The Swiss Courier
www.redeemthesilence.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449758905

Sherrill Anderson Nielsen

Sherrill Nielsen received her bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in special education for the mentally retarded from San Jose State University. She received her teaching credential after finishing a year of graduate school required in California. She was a public school teacher for five years. She went on to complete a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Azusa Pacific University. After a four-year internship, she received her license as a Marriage and Family Therapist. After many years with Christian Counseling Centers, Nielsen founded what is now Discovery Counseling Center in Morgan Hill, California. She served as the director there for seven years. She was adjunct professor at Western Seminary for three years teaching Human Life Span Development in their master’s degree program. She has been a speaker/presenter for churches, community workshops, and William Jessup University (formerly San Jose Christian College). Nielsen is a rape survivor and has been on the Recovery Road herself for thirty years. She has been a professional therapist for over twenty-five years, specializing in the treatment of sexual violence.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 Sherrill Anderson Nielsen, MFT

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-5888-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5889-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5890-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012912172

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/15/2012

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 Life Changes In A Single Moment

Chapter 2 When Rape Is Not Recognized

Chapter 3 Why Not Challenge Cultural Thinking?

Chapter 4 What We Can Do

Chapter 5 Postmodern Thought At Work In Faith Community Culture

Chapter 6 Guidelines For Husbands, Male Family, And Friends Of Survivors Robert Nielsen Phd

Chapter 7 Road To Recovery: Moving Through Shock

Chapter 8 Road To Recovery: Healing Your Anger

Chapter 9 Road To Recovery: Healing Through Reorganization

Chapter 10 Road To Recovery: Healing Toward Resolution

Chapter 11 Road To Recovery: Healing Toward Redemption

Appendix A: Types Of Sexual Abuse

Appendix B: Safety Tips

About The Author

Endnotes

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Alena and Wesley,

God’s greatest earthly gifts to me.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As is the case for many parts of life, you can’t write a book like this without your community. This book would have never been produced without a community of family and friends. Expressing a few words of gratitude seems so limited in its ability to express what is in my heart to each one God provided to help with this project. Let me say it now, however, and repeat it . . . thank you, thank you, thank you.

For your encouragement to keep moving ahead, Phyllis Rogers, Dr. Ronna Phifer-Ritche, Pastor Jim Coffaro, and especially Mike Yorkey of Every Man’s Battle fame and author/former editor at Focus on the Family, thanks for believing in this work.

For asking me about my experiences occasionally and telling me about things I needed that I did not know I needed, thank you, Dr. David Smith.

Thanks go to my editor, Marlee Ledai, who made a book out of my years of messy notes, and transformed the words as though I were writing from my heart.

For the careful and caring review of the drafts, thanks, Clyde Cowert and Jean Warner.

Thanks go to the many survivors who have shared their stories with me and allowed me to be a part of their story.

I thank the many men who wrote endorsements: Dr. David Smith, former pastor and now lead navigator with Theodyssey.org; Dr. Peter Wilkes, former professor, author, and pastor, now in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Mike Yorkey, as mentioned previously; Pastor Mark Coffin of Riverside Church in Boise, Idaho; and especially Pastor Jim Coffaro, who is a rare person who really gets the need for help and the prevalence of sexual violence. He is Senior Pastor at New Song Foursquare Church, San Jose, California.

And a big hug of thanks goes to Sandy (and Hercules). Without her belief in me, this book may never have happened. Thank you for your amazing sense of humor and your friendship through this process.

1

Life Changes in a Single Moment

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet

voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.

~ MARYANNE RADMACHER-HERSHEY

There have been mornings when my life seemed like a dark shadowy dream that wouldn’t end. It wasn’t always that way. At one time my life made sense to me. I had a well ordered and organized life, enclosed by paper-mache walls that looked like perfection. I had a nice home on a suburban cul-de-sac with a cool backyard swimming pool. I had the perfect appearing husband and was the proud and busy mother of two darn-near-perfect kids. Home was right, church was right, and we were the perfect appearing family doing everything right. In one moment, it all began to crumble.

Midmorning, after my regular gym class, I stopped for groceries and turned toward home. After I pulled into the garage, I began the usual hassle of unloading. Juggling my gym bag, a plastic bag with milk and bread, and a diaper bag, I tried to hoist my twenty-two-month-old son and his baby-blue silky out of the car. After dropping and bending to pick up the silky, I made my way into the house from the garage. I did not notice the deep gouges on the doorjamb. I worked my way up the stairs and set Wesley down to toddle his way into the living room, and then I called, Come up and get your diaper changed, kiddo!

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Wesley had plopped down, happily relaxing on the floor, his hands behind his head. Leaving him briefly, I went to the bathroom in the master-bedroom suite. I was wondering how much I could accomplish in the couple of hours before my five-year-old daughter was due home from kindergarten by carpool.

Without warning, life changed in an instant. I went numb as I was confronted by a stocky man just inside the bathroom door.

I quickly registered that he was about five feet ten inches tall. A nylon stocking was drawn gruesomely over his head and dark hair. The barrel of a revolver in his hand was pointed directly at me.

My mind raced to make sense out of the seemingly impossible. Was this some kind of bad practical joke? Had my brother-in-law gotten off work to pull this stunt? What was he doing in my bedroom?

The man grabbed my arm and whirled me around, facing away. No. No. No. This could not be real! That was the last glimpse I had of the man. But the memories are seared into my mind.

The masked man shoved me from the master bathroom into the bedroom and made me get face down on the floor. He jammed the gun into the side of my skull, demanding to know when others were expected home, threatening to shoot me if I lied. Hoping to scare him, I told him my husband was to arrive home soon with our daughter. He demanded money. I told him where it was. As he pressed the gun more firmly into the side of my head, he told me he’d already gotten that.

Suddenly, fear for Wesley overwhelmed me. I began to pray for my son’s protection and begged my attacker to let me care for him. The attacker finally relented, pulled me up and marched me downstairs with the gun firmly in my back.

Wes was still on the floor, unaware of the danger and quite happy even though it was past nap time. I was allowed to carry him to his room, but the window shade had to remain open, my attacker announced. I put Wes to bed with a wet diaper—with none of the usual rocking and reading. Miracle of miracles, that child went right to sleep and never uttered a sound. As I was led away, a peace settled over me. But it lasted only a moment, for the next hour was sheer horror.

My attacker pushed me back into the master bedroom. Using several scarves he’d found in a drawer, he blindfolded me so tightly that later I had trouble seeing. He tied my hands behind my back. He proceeded to fondle my breasts and said Not much for tits, huh? I asked him if he was going to rape me. He said no as he began to take off my jogging pants and underwear, then my shoes and socks.

I said, I thought you weren’t going to rape me.

This is just for insurance for when I leave, he said. He then untied my hands and took off my top. Once I was nude, he retied my hands and got undressed himself. He climbed on top of me and proceeded to rape me in more ways than I am sure you wish to imagine. I cried out in pain, but he told me to shut up and raped me more brutally. At one point, he tried to make me say disgusting things to him. When I didn’t comply, he shouted, You’re not talking! The truth was I couldn’t make those words come out of my mouth.

Instead, I said, Jesus loves you, and you don’t have to do this. He kept on, and I lost track of time.

When he was getting ready to leave, my attacker forced me onto the bed—facedown. I felt certain he was going to shoot me in the back three times. I can’t explain why that feeling seemed so real. I just knew. I prayed for survival, but as best I could, I prepared to die. (I’ve since learned this is a common fear in all types of rape and molestation.) I was dragged onto the bathroom floor, nude and still tightly blindfolded. He tied a scarf through my mouth and around my head, retied my hands behind me, and bound my feet together.

The attacker then put what seemed to have been an ether-soaked cloth firmly over my face and nearly suffocated me in his haste to make me breathe it. I had no choice. I don’t know how long he kept forcing that, but at some point he let go. It sounded like he was getting dressed. When I found myself losing consciousness, I prayed again, this time to remain awake. At the same time, I tried to convince him that I was going under. He ordered me to count to a thousand. When I had reached thirty-two or so, he yelled at me asking if I could hear him, but I didn’t answer readily on purpose. He asked again, louder. I vaguely acknowledged him. He then ordered me not to tell anyone what had happened, threatening that he or someone else would be back. He then yelled at me to keep counting. I did, up to 130. While he finished getting ready to leave, I miraculously remained alert and heard him leave through the sliding glass doors.

As I lay on the bathroom floor, I thought of my five-year-old daughter who was due home at any moment. Terrified for us both that she would see me this way, I struggled frantically to get my hands free but fell back exhausted. I wondered how, even if I could make it to the telephone, I could talk with a scarf stuffed into my mouth. I prayed again, this time asking for strength. Suddenly, I pulled my wrists apart from behind me, and though I had been unsuccessful a moment before, within seconds I was free.

That was September 22, 1982. The physical turmoil ended. Little did I know that my emotional and spiritual turmoil was just beginning.

Are You a Survivor?

If you have lived through any type of sexual violence (SV), then you are a fantastically heroic survivor. You have survived an encounter with death. Whatever you did, you did it right by virtue of the fact that you are still here. But please don’t assume your experience is no longer affecting you. Don’t assume that because your experience of SV is in the past it is therefore unimportant. That is just a form of denial or self-delusion. Because up to 92 percent of communication is unspoken, it is essential that people get help for incidents of SV that may be in their past. Any form of avoidance is a lie and makes one more vulnerable to further emotional and spiritual damage.

Most of us have things written into our souls from our past. We are unaware they often still affect us. These things may be causing us great pain, particularly in relationships and other problems we experience in the present. Unless one has dealt head-on with a history of SV (most often with some kind of help), one is most likely unconsciously communicating in ways that can increase future risk of even more pain.

Our culture’s unspoken rule not to talk about our experiences gives the words rape and sexual abuse power—power that they do not deserve to have. When we keep silent, we collude to keep ourselves and other victims enmeshed in a victim mentality. We unknowingly keep rapists in the business of raping. Not that we are responsible for the rape, but when we pretend it will go away by keeping silent, we promote a shame-based culture around SV. Our conservative faith communities reflect the greater culture, like it or not. Leadership in faith communities consciously or unconsciously often promote a policy of silence or of judgment toward survivors. Add the insidious nature of morally relative postmodern thinking, and the result is we are stuck in a sexually violent merry-go-round.

The word rape has as much power as we give it. Today is the day to change things. As Dr. Phil often says, There is only one thing worse than being in a bad relationship, and that is being in it one more day. It is time to break the rule. It is time to talk. It is time to talk openly about rape/SV: what it is and what happens to women (boys and men as well) as a result. It is time to promote clear, healthy thinking on the subject. It is time to face and heal our fears and stop seeing ourselves as victims. Let us stop cooperating with the unhealthy cultural rules that demand we not talk about rape. Let us support each other as sisters without blame. Let us begin to heal in a deep spiritual connection with people who love us and with God, who is our provider and the lover of our souls.

You’ll notice this book is directed at and written for women. This is for the sake of simplicity, but men and boys are also survivors of SV. As Jim Coffaro, former pastor at Generations Foursquare and Venture Churches (San Jose and Los Gatos, California), states so well, Sexual violence is a sin of humankind against humankind, not men against women. SV, after all, is a criminal act of power and aggression. As such, it is logical that it crosses gender lines. In fact, the diverse, unspoken secrets of male survivors may be buried deeper than they are for women. The experience of rape for men has its own unique features in our culture, but this book doesn’t attempt to address them. For male rape survivors, I recommend Abused Boys by Mic Hunter (New York: Fawcett. Columbine, 1990).

In the end, the question, ‘Why me?’ is unanswerable, says Gregory Boyd in Is God to Blame?:

It’s a mystery. But the point of the book of Job, and a lesson we can appropriate from chaos theory, is that this isn’t a mystery about God’s will or character; it’s a mystery about the vastness and complexity of creation. We experience life as arbitrary simply because we are finite . . . What we learn from this profound book is that the reason Job—as opposed to someone else—suffered as he did has nothing to do with his sinful character or God’s arbitrary character . . .

When all is said and done, the mystery of why any particular misfortune befalls one person rather than another is no different than the mystery of why any particular event happens the way it does . . . The mystery of the particularity of evil is simply one manifestation of the mystery of every particular thing.¹

A Theology of Suffering

Yes, we long and pray for peace; surely God put that desire in us because it is part of who He is. We do what is within our power to bring peace into the world. And yet how many years have we heard, repeatedly, about the Middle East peace agreement? What is the likelihood of successful efforts to make that happen? Neither is it likely that, until Christ’s return to fully redeem believers, we’ll live in a world where rape and SV is eliminated. We can, however, drastically reduce the numbers if we will just break the Code of Silence. You and I can respond to survivors in a healing manner. We can make a difference in the remainder of their lives. We can facilitate the process of growth, freeing them from fear and anger, enabling them to help others and bring beauty to people they love.

I ask myself, Before I was raped, how would I have responded to a rape survivor? I’m not proud of my answer, because I’m pretty sure I would have said and done similarly to what was said and done to me. I, too, am a product of collective thinking in faith communities and a national culture that doesn’t talk about rape. Working through the aftermath of my rape, I was fortunate enough to have something most survivors do not: I felt no shame. I knew that I was in no way responsible for the rape, and knowing this fact worked in my favor. God in His sovereignty allows many things to happen in our lives that none of us can explain. Some people suffer inexplicably in this life. Some do not. Some are raped and live. Some are raped and do not live. To feel no shame and know the truth that only the rapist is at fault are two conclusions that most survivors need a lot of help to arrive at. The two truths that I describe above were total God-given gifts. Many years later, I discovered that the victims normally think their attacks were their fault and keep silent out of shame.

I still needed a lot of help with other problems though, like depression and anger, very common results of what I call emotional cancer.

In giving each human being free choice, God included rapists, perpetrators, and murderers. He allowed humankind the honor of free choice so that true love and dignity might exist. He has let us know in His Word that in this world we will have tribulation. He let us know that the Enemy has been allowed a certain amount of power until Jesus returns. We either believe and accept this reality—and deal with it—or we do not, knowing that in God’s perfect will, no one would be raped or murdered. Either we will choose to trust in His character or we won’t. In spite of our pain, in spite of what is unfair, unjust, and cruel, our hope is in a tremendous and wonderful God—a God who has a contingency plan.

It seems to me that confronting the issue of suffering is at the core of the life of a Christ-follower. At no time are we guaranteed a pain-free and prosperous life. The far more likely scenario is that