The Winds of Autumn: A Resource for Survivors of Sexual Trauma

By Susanna Shutz Robar

There is hope for you!

Inside The Winds of Autumn, you'll learn:

• How to conquer your doubts and distresses about sexual trauma;
• How the light of the Holy Spirit guides and cleanses you toward discovering, retrieving, and embracing the hidden parts of the past;
• How shifting from mythical thinking to fact

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jan 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637696750

Susanna Shutz Robar

Being the Face of Hope for victims and survivors of sexual violence and human sex trafficking, Susanna is a survivor of domestic minor sexual abuse and domestic minor pornographic human sex trafficking. Through RapeSpeaksOut!, she has educated groups for twenty-three years about sexual violence and human sex trafficking. In 1998, Susanna received the California Rape Crisis Advocate Certification from The Valley Trauma Center, and in 2004-The Graduate Certificate in Christian Ministry from The King's University.

Book preview

Susanna exposes the evil practices of sexual assault, rape, childhood sexual abuse and exploitation, and human sexual trafficking. She describes the long-term multi-dimensional repercussions in the lives of their victims. Susanna stands in solidarity with them because she, herself, was a victim. She exposes the evil tactics and schemes of perpetrators and the mythic thinking that keeps victims silent. Susanna provides practical steps to begin the transformation journey that brings God’s light into the darkness, validates their voices, encourages them to break the silence and tell their stories. May churches break their silence, too, and be safe places for victims’ stories to be told and transformational journeys to begin.

—Dr. Leah Coulter,

Professor, Author, Retired Pastor

([e-mail])

susanna shutz robar

the winds

of autumn

a resource for survivors

of sexual trauma

This Book Is Dedicated to...

…my Beloved Husband—Robert—Sweet, Dear Robert!

What ever would I have done without him? Robert…God’s perfect match for me. Little did he know when he proposed marriage to me that he was in for quite a journey. He has traversed many a mountain-top experience with me and many a valley of despair with me. Robert and I joined together with profound joy as we discovered and received new dreams and gathered even newer plans for our family. He has also been left quietly subdued by me at times, being in my erratic world of underground depression, silent anger, and terrifying fear. Robert has been a remarkable measure of faithfulness.

Every morning, Time to get up! he would announce as he pulled back the bedcovers that enveloped me into a cocoon on a mattress that felt like a piece of hard, cold concrete under my aching body. Then into the shower, running with suitably prepared hot water, Robert would pour me, where eventually my brain would re-connect with itself, and the bodily aches and pains would melt away, flowing down into the shower drain. Always waiting for me at the kitchen table with a freshly cooked breakfast, it was his constancy and dependability that caused me to live out those depressing days with a sensible amount of energy and brainpower. From the triggering event of the 1971 earthquake until Robert was given an injurious, unwarranted medication, Robert was on duty! In 2016, his life as he knew it suddenly changed, though he continues with a rewarding road to recovery. Now I pull the bedcovers off from Robert’s warm and comfy sleep! Marriage is like that. The one who is more capable at the time is the one who directs the call.

My Esteemed Children…

…by whom I have been richly blessed over their lifetimes. Their tenacity of spirit, loyalty to family, unyielding strength, and courage in the face of adversity, and surrender to God are characteristics that I admire the most in each of them. Their support of me in the most unproductive, ambiguous, and contradictory of times, to the more beneficial, direct, and consistent of times has been a treasure; they have lived a considerable part of this story of mine with me, seeing, watching, internalizing, reacting, and responding to its effect upon them. But then, that is their story to tell.

And Their Faithful Families…

…who, in a variety of ways, have been and continue to be a guiding standard for me. Their ways and words are a support that is of value beyond expression to my children and to me.

My Blessed Parents and Grandparents…

…Alexander and Clara Marie (Reid) Shutz, and Judge Raymond Leigh and Hildegard Clara (Hentschke) Reid. I am grateful for the legacy that my parents and grandparents planted for me in my heart, which initiated God’s love in me, and for me, to be forever and continually transformed with a spirit that relishes and reflects a life lived for Jesus. Their good words and deeds of encouragement, leadership, guidance, and reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ have left me with hopeful moments on which I will draw for the rest of my life.

Were there imbalances in the way my parents and grandparents approached parenthood? Certainly. Just as I have been the cause of parenting disparities. Even so, as I look at their lives from this vantage point…looking at the whole of their lives…it brings a balance in my mind by means of their own struggles and their own victories. Rather than idolize the good parts and/or be bitter about the negative parts, I cherish, consider, and appreciate their whole person. This lays out a far more rewarding perception than undyingly taking one side or the other. The whole of who my parents and grandparents were will always be a part of the whole of who I am. In the end, I am blessed.

Let him have all your worries and cares, for he is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you (1 Peter 5:7, TLB).

The Winds of Autumn

The winds of autumn come and blow,

warmth across my heart to overflow.

Deep from the past, and far from now;

back behind myself, to where I allow.

The winds of autumn bring to mind,

all those things thought left behind;

…behind to stay, never to find,

strength of their own to finally unwind;

…unwind the story of bye-gone days,

slowly revealing those horrid ways.

The winds of autumn force to mind,

the spring long forgotten to defend.

This gentle breeze comes for me,

that I might join in winter’s glee.

—Susanna Shutz Robar

Acknowledgments

Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them…In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.

Ephesians 6:13-14, 18 (MSG)

I Give High Praise to…

…my Friend and Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—Who bought me for His own, and snatched me out of the pit of hopelessness, and brought me up and all along the way into His righteousness and into His eternal and glorious plan for my life. He has forgiven me (my past sins) and continues to forgive me (my present and future sins) because of His redeeming blood at the cross of Calvary. By Him, I was created for His purpose and designed for His season. "To everything [to every person] there is a season, a time for every purpose [given to every person] under heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1, NKJV) (brackets added for clarity). My reason for being and for my purpose under heaven is to declare the love of God and to tell what He has done for me. I am alive today because He has kept me for such a time as this.

I Offer Gratitude to…

…my friends, acquaintances, and the professionals—I am eternally indebted to a few friends who have already gone on to their eternal reward in heaven. The rest of this group of friends, acquaintances, and associates continue in this life in their particular and suitable calling.

Most have been prompted by the Holy Spirit to encourage me with confirming words and sustaining prayers. They have poured the principles (values, ethics, beliefs) and the parameters (limits, considerations, boundaries) of the Lord Jesus Christ into me in scores of ways: friend, mentor, confidant, and encourager.

Still, others have provided a special skill or helped me with practical and insightful knowledge and education I did not previously possess on my own. All these endeavors prompted me onward with inspiration, reassurance, support, and aid.

And yet, some were used by the Holy Spirit to otherwise motivate me in pressing on to greater doors of opportunity I never would have enjoyed had it not been for their personal contribution.

I will forever be thankful for the doctors who helped along the way: Dr. Sam Fink, MD, Internal Medicine (recommendation of a counselor); Dr. Michael Hirt, MD, Internal Medicine and Nutrition (diagnosed the Psoas Abscess); Dr. Lance Steinberg, MD, Psychiatry Specialist (reassurance with, Mrs. Robar, there is hope for you).

This group of people are all precious and significant in their own right but also deserve to be recognized as a part of this writing project either knowingly, or for a few, unbeknownst to them. I remain appreciative to each one and their unique role in my writing journey over the years.

I am indebted to Melanie Chitwood, my writing coach, who worked tirelessly to categorize all my research, study, and lecture-teaching notes into an organized arrangement, yet with simple clarity.

Last of all, I am grateful to Trilogy Inc. and to Mark Mingle and his team. Their help has been remarkable, and I am grateful for their vision and insight into this project.

Table of Contents

Preface: A Letter to Victims and Survivors of Sexual Trauma: There Is Hope for You! 15

Introduction: The Beginning of the San Fernando Valley Porn Industry 17

Chapter 1: The Story Behind the Story 21

Chapter 2: Susanna’s Story 41

Chapter 3: Correctly Defining and Understanding Sexual Assault and Human Sex Trafficking 65

Chapter 4: The Consequences of Sexual Assault 75

Chapter 5: Susanna’s Personal Post-Sexual Assault Effects 95

Chapter 6: The Process of Post-Sexual Assault Trauma Recovery and Healing 121

Chapter 7: Susanna’s Personal Account of the Process of Recovery and Healing: Part 1 149

Chapter 8: Susanna’s Personal Account of the Process of Recovery and Healing: Part 2 161

Chapter 9: Susanna’s Personal Account of the Process of Recovery and Healing: Part 3 181

Chapter 10: The Truth About Sexual Assault 195

Chapter 11: Children’s Post-Sexual Assault Trauma Issues 215

Chapter 12: The Legacy of Silence 241

Chapter 13: Forgiveness? You Gotta Be Kiddin’ Me! 251

Chapter 14: God, Where Were You? 265

Chapter 15: The Purple-Heart Blessing 271

Appendix A 277

Appendix B 281

Appendix C 287

Appendix D 291

Appendix E 299

About the Author 303

Endnotes 305

Preface

A Letter to Victims and Survivors of Sexual Trauma: There Is Hope for You!

"Ye are of God, my little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world."

1 John 4:4 (ASV)

This resource will be a help and a hope for you in the weeks and months to come. It has been written for you and your new day! Take it one day at a time, do not be in a rush, and know that you are not alone. There are multitudes of people who have experienced a sexual trauma like the one you have endured, including myself, although your experience is as unique as you are. No one person can really know your personal, deep sense of pain or terror. But many do thoroughly understand your desire to have victory and to heal.

It is also important to remember that sexual trauma recovery and the healing process are just that—a process. Give God the time and space that you need to absorb all that has happened to you and all that He wants to do in and through you. Your destination in Jesus has not changed. You are still His chosen child, and He still has a plan and a hope for your future, as it says in Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV), ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’

You are not responsible for what has happened to you. Thinking about trying to find a reason that you might have put yourself in harm’s way can be a normal part of the healing process. That way of thinking is our mind’s way of trying to be safer in the present tense. Looking for a more concrete reason for the event, we think we can then avoid those dangerous circumstances in the future, thus protecting ourselves.

In as much as finding a rationale is a normal way of thinking soon after a trauma, it is not productive long-term. The healthier way is looking beyond the temptation to take even a small part of the responsibility. Remember that all, every bit, of the responsibility belongs to the perpetrator. The perpetrator may have placed his ill-resolved past on you. But the blood of Jesus washes all of that away; yes, even those things that have been done to us by others. Asking Jesus for His perfect wholeness and His blood-washed cleansing can become a part of your healing journey.

While you are reading this resource, there are other resources available for you. In the event you need to speak to someone, the RAINN (The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) telephone hotline number is 1-800-656-HOPE.

The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) is an American nonprofit anti-sexual assault organization, the largest in the United States. [¹] RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, as well as the Department of Defense (DoD) Safe Helpline, and carries out programs to prevent sexual assault, help survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice through victim services, public education, public policy, and consulting services.[2]

Wikipedia

This is a walk you have not chosen. Nonetheless, it is a path you are on. Let it be a path of healing and victory, pushing beyond every temptation to cave into the enemy of our souls; that is not an option. You will make it, and you will be victorious!

Introduction

The Beginning of the San Fernando Valley Porn Industry

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)

When I was eleven years old in 1956, I was a victim of human sex trafficking. That term was not being used back then. No one had yet coined the phrase human trafficking or anything like it. 

However, it was then, just as it is now, human sex trafficking and illegal. A victim does not need to be physically taken anywhere for this definition of sex trafficking to be accurate. And, to the surprise of many Americans, one does not need to be a foreigner in the United States or an American girl or boy in a foreign country or a foreign girl or boy in a foreign country. 

Human sex trafficking involves the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, period. 

I am an adult survivor of domestic childhood sexual abuse and domestic child exploitation, including pornographic human sex trafficking. Nineteen fifty-six was the beginning of the burst, or explosion, if you will, of the porn industry in the San Fernando Valley. The films made during my trafficking in the San Fernando Valley were used as a series of eight films for purchase which anyone could utilize to learn how to make pornographic films for personal use and/or for profit. I am told by several professionals that these films never go away. They are still out there, begging evil upon their viewers and sending more people into the jaws of death except for the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ.

Today I am seventy-six years old, and many years have ensued since the last abuse took place. It wasn’t until I came face to face with my own truth in 1990 that I have been able to share my past experiences. From that time until now, the Lord brought a certain clarity to my past in small doses of reality until I became capable of embracing the whole of it.

My story could be difficult to tell, but I share it with the wonder and awe of the Lord because to me, it represents a life that lives and breathes; I am alive, and I am here; and despite everything, I have a life that explores the future, surveys the future, and plans into the future.

As a result of my life experiences, I now speak and write about my past traumas as a sexual assault and prevention education educator and an advocate for child safety. In telling my story, more people will learn how to help themselves and how to communicate more appropriately about this issue, and at the same time, tear down the wall of secrecy that silence has built to protect the perpetrator.

What I have learned from these events represents a living, breathing, and active life for me, and potentially, the same engaging life for those who hear my story for several reasons.

First, my victories, my catastrophes, and my understandings are my legacy that I can either starve in concealment and put out of sight forever to perish with me one day, or I can allow this legacy to be known and identified, authenticated, and embraced, particularly by the next generation. I believe it is my responsibility to bequeath my gifts and not lose them in underground pockets of secrets, secrets quickly hidden beneath the pristine, white linen, fantasy handkerchief in my mind, and tucked-in neatly around all sides of the innocuous, square box holding its contents secure.

In the end, such a fantasy would forsake me and betray my trust, eventually positioning me flat and ineffective for the rest of my life on this earth. It would be far more harmful than valuable or beneficial. These once-in-a-time secrets do not disqualify me from speaking out. To the contrary, now, these things essentially give me a better voice from which to speak.

Second, I tell my story for healing purposes. As we will learn from God’s Word, healing comes when we bring into His Light what has been in the dark.

Third, as you read, you will be able to assess what issues from your own past need attention.

Fourth, this information will help family members and/or friends who are helping to support the post-sexual trauma victim.

Fifth, this information can be a resource for those who are assisting the post-sexual trauma victim in a professional way.

I have found such value and redemption in telling this story of mine. Telling this story has made me free from the darkest power of evil that was brutally thrust upon me. My hope is that you, too, will find freedom and healing from your past trauma, whatever shape or direction it has taken in your life.

Note. An important word of caution. This is not an easy story to tell or to read. If you are hypersensitive to details about the trauma of others, do not read the actual stories in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. You may wish to skip to Chapter 3.

Chapter 1

The Story Behind the Story

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Ephesians 6:13 (NIV)

The sexual abuse and trafficking that victimized me created many terribly dreadful memories. For many years I put the bad memories into the nooks and crannies of my mind and heart, where my child’s mind was sure they were safe and could never escape.

Over time, and because I kept them so well hidden from myself, my scary memories (the secrets) faded away until they were no longer recognizable or even visible to me. I lived most of my life sensing that something was wrong on the inside of me, always wanting to fix whatever it was. But I never could identify it, isolate it, or manage it. From about the age of twelve or thirteen on, I knew my relationships suffered from it, whatever it was.

I loved being with people as a younger child, but from my junior high school years on, in every social instance, fear crept into my mind and held on so tight that I became tongue-tied. My mind would go completely blank at the simplest question, Hi, what’s your name? Or, Hi, how’s it going? Not being able to sensibly answer, I would immediately be thrust into the center of attention as my face and then my arms, and sometimes even my legs, for gosh sakes, would turn bright red with embarrassment. Laughter and ridicule flooded out of every mouth that encircled me with jeers: friends, students, and even the teachers. They were the worst and certainly of no comfort.

Prior to junior high school, I never had these social situations happen to me. I was gregarious and fun-loving. I was also polite and courteous, had lots of friends, and did well in school. Seventh grade shifted everything for me. I became fearful, angry, and suspicious of everyone. Of course, I did not see these things at the time. It’s only now, as I look back over my life, that I sense these issues were present in that season of life.

Out of this mix-up of verbal failure, I did discover a way to circumvent the problem. I compensated. I wrote what I wanted to say on my mind, literally, like with a typewriter on a piece of paper. Everything I wanted to say was written in my head. I could see it there in my head. It looked like a type-written page. Then I would read what the words in my mind said. I was unaware that I was doing this until one day, I discovered this trick while in a class I took at the local family institute in 1971 after the death of our son. I wanted to learn more about how to be a better wife and mother, to find out if I could finally fix what was wrong on the inside of me (fourteen years after the seventh grade).

The leader of the class, Peggy, referred to the common process by which everyone speaks out of the visual cues everyone sees in their minds. I thought, I never see any pictures in my mind! All I see are type-written words. I was too ashamed to tell anyone. But that information propelled me to go on one of my personal, investigative journeys to discover why I did that and how I did that. More importantly, I wanted to discover how to stop doing that.

What I unearthed was a process that I thought would help me but inadvertently hindered my ability to communicate with people well. I detected that by the time the sentence or phrase was typed in my mind, and I could read it to myself and memorize it so I could speak it, the conversation I was having with anyone had drifted far beyond what I was about to speak in response. But speak I did, and it fell flat because my comments always referenced content long past the group conversation.

I was so astonished to understand this phenomenon that I immediately began to work on forming pictures in my mind instead of words to help me verbalize thoughts. It was slow going, but I did it. I worked on it for seven years before I had what I would call spontaneous speech (1978) at the age of thirty-three.

Nonetheless, on account of the continued, dreadful abusive life I lived as a young person, I was powerless to do anything about the sinking, lost feeling that constantly resided within me, feeling doomed to failure at every twisted tangle and bend in the road that confronted me.

Dissociative Identity Disorder and Communication Hindrances

When horrifying events happen with such an unreal grasp of certainty for a child, occurrences that almost seem as though they did not really happen, the search for words to communicate the experience is difficult for the child to bring about any reality of verbal expression. The repeated and gruesome abuse over a long period of time creates space for some children to do things such as not being able to wisely answer a simple question because of a mind gone blank or to compensate with a typewriter writing words in the mind. These kinds of responses tend to make the child appear guilty of something, and uneducated adults usually lean in that direction. It becomes a lifelong arousal of confusion for the child, "Maybe I am guilty of that infraction. I didn’t do it. But I feel guilty."

For a lot of children in these circumstances, a splitting of the personality materializes, where the parts of a person’s personality […how we respond with patterns of expression in our thinking, feeling, and behavior…] (Finding New Parts of Personality, Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com › ... › 201402 › finding-new-parts-personality) become compartmentalized, allowing only one part of the personality to be expressed at any one time, creating space for blackouts (memory issues) to occur under too much stress and a general switching from one part of the personality to another part. The goal of such activity is for the protection and safety of the main functioning part of the personality.

In professional psychological circles, this phenomenon is referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder. Wikipedia defines DID as

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), is a mental disorder characterized by the maintenance of at least two distinct and relatively enduring personality states. The disorder is accompanied by memory gaps beyond what would be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.

Wikipedia

The Cleveland Clinic, a dependable and world-renowned health clinic and foundation in Ohio (clevelandclinic.org), defines DID this way,

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) was formerly called multiple personality disorder. People with DID develop one or more alternate personalities that function with or without the awareness of the persons usual personality. DID is one of a group of conditions called dissociative disorders. Dissociative disorders are mental illnesses that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, consciousness or awareness, identity and/or perception mental functions that normally work smoothly.

The Cleveland Clinic

https://my.clevelandclinic.org › health › diseases › 9792...

My Mind Went Blank!

The blank mind usually happens when there is a shift between two different parts of the personality caused by a trigger of some sort. A trigger can be a fragrance, a person who looks like the abuser, locations that are the same or similar to the abuse location or other physical effect (i.e., same neighborhood, type of car, clothing, handwriting style), words or phrases used in a particular tone of voice, etc. The triggers for post-sexual trauma victims and survivors are as endless as there are victims who experience them.

For me, these blank-mind periods were usually triggered by someone, usually a male, asking me a direct question in the presence of other people (classroom, social gathering, a store cashier asking for payment), to which a reply was warranted. I would become so flustered because I could not comprehend the meaning of the question. The words? Yes, I could repeat them perfectly. But what did they mean? And what was the answer that was expected? I didn’t have a clue.

Further Communication Obstacles

Either in concert with DID or without its influence, there are additional complications that confuse the communication of the post-sexual trauma child/victim who denies the ready and alert adult to bring quick help and assistance. The child who has been sexually victimized and is unable to verbalize the hurtful events cannot hold everything inside for too long. The anguish must come out in some way. It will eventually show itself in a physical, emotional, or psychological way. Dr. Leah Coulter (The King’s University) has coined the phrase, socio-pneumo-psycho-somatic, to describe these as

…relational repercussions as a result of betrayal wounds (in which the survivor tries to make sense of her world through psychological defenses) that are carried through adulthood, and which are manifested in relational, psychological, spiritual and physical ways.

Dr. Leah Coulter

Within the family, most adults (parents and other relatives) are not ready to decipher the enormity of the non-verbal communications that a post-sexual trauma child is delivering, especially in a physical or emotional way, and they are stifled, sometimes for decades. The memories then become so glued into the wrong place in the psyche or the body that it usually takes years of avoidance and denial before a rip in the sidewalls begins to loosen the stuff holding it all at bay, and it bursts wide open in less time than it takes to breathe one breath.

The breaking time, the rip-in-the-sidewalls, happened for me in 1990 when I was forty-five years old. One of our two daughters had just been married, and I was, for one moment in time, on top of the world. Up to this point in my life, I was happily content with a sensible path of purpose in living. My husband was an accomplished fire captain, nearing retirement, and who was satisfied in his chosen profession. Our children, who were a joy to both of us, had friends, selected activities, and completed their schooling well. I loved our home and our family. The desire to have a closer relationship with our extended family was something we all worked on consistently to accomplish.

For the