You don’t have to hide anymore. Luka Vaughan shares his survival story so you, too, can overcome the shame that is paralyzing your soul.
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I remember feeling so deeply ashamed. Even now, after so many years, I find it hard to explain why. Of course, now I can look back and know that it was misguided to feel shame, but then, shame gripped me and ruled my world. It was my world.
There is no honor in sexual abuse. No honor in a boy being used as the “girl” in a one sided sexual relationship.
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I would be with a group of friends, and suddenly feel as if I was disgusting. I remember just getting on my bicycle and tearing away as fast as I could, sometimes leaving them utterly confused as to why I had disappeared. I would often go for walks into the large wild areas of overgrowth near our house, and just be alone, thinking that I had no place in the world.
I began to read a lot, from a very young age. I was prolific and quick. I would read 4 books in two days, and frustrate my mother who had to take me back to the library (4 at a time was the limit) to get more. I read lots of sci-fi, and still love the genre today. I loved the creation of alien worlds and strange places, and I was lost in them. My parents wouldn’t see me for hours, even days except for meal times. I would even take my books to school and go off alone somewhere during breaks.
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I was ashamed, and in my private world of heroes and planets and space travel, I could be honorable again. Stories of heroes arising from the ashes of trauma and defeat, inspired me, but when the story ended and the books closed, I was alone and weak again, and the shame returned. So I would open up the next book, and the next one. They were my refuge.
There is no honor in sexual abuse. No honor in a boy being used as the “girl” in a one sided sexual relationship. I was ashamed of what my father would think, what my friends would think, what my teachers would think. Secrecy and hiding were my only safety, and I hid. I knew my father wanted me to be big and strong. He constantly called me his “champion”. But I wasn’t a champion. I was a failure and the shame of not being what he wanted me to be was soul destroying. Every time he called me that, I broke a little bit more on the inside.
We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.
Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.
Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare. -Brené Brown
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Shame is the sense that we are no longer a vessel of honor. The sense that what is worthy, admirable and fine about us has been ruined. Embarrassment is what we feel when we believe others are looking; but shame is a constant companion even in solitude. Unfortunately, shame attaches to us whether we deserve it or not, especially in the case of sexual abuse. Because the abuse goes to our identity, the shame does to. We are ashamed, and yet we did nothing shameful. The shameful thing was done to us.
If we are treated as trash; as disposable, and as a thing of pleasure for a twisted mind; if we are treated as shameful by another, it becomes who we are, and we learn to expect that of ourselves too.
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As children, we do not have the discernment or the strength of character to disassociate our identity from the thing that was done to us. How an adult treats a child, forms that child’s self-image. If we are treated as worthy, we become worthy. We learn to expect it of ourselves, and we learn to act so that our expectations come true. If we are treated as mature, we become mature and learn to expect it of ourselves. Again, we act in such a way that our expectations come true. If we are treated as trash; as disposable, and as a thing of pleasure for a twisted mind; if we are treated as shameful by another, it becomes who we are, and we learn to expect that of ourselves too. And sadly, we act those expectations into reality as well.
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Shame is a soul sickness, not a feeling. Its fingers grip far deeper than a passing emotion; it paralyzes our spirits. It causes unworthiness to reverberate within us, like a bell responding to all impacts in exactly the same way; coloring every interaction and every waking moment with its wretched accusations.
It is hard, but we must undo the connection between what was done to us, and who we are. We are not shameful. The person who did this to us – they are shameful. We do not need forgiveness, they do. It is not a shameful thing to have been treated unfairly and to have been taken advantage of. It is a shameful thing to do that to an innocent person and to give them a life sentence of disfigured instincts and destabilized emotional fundamentals.
If we can separate out whom we are from what was done to us, and if we can seek out the beauty in whom we once were; in who we are now, and what we again can be, we can hold our head high and meet the gaze of the world around us with dignity. It is a thing of beauty to rise up. And even more a thing of beauty to rise up with grace and gentleness. That is honorable. We have been given a unique opportunity to turn shame into honor.
Look in the mirror. See the resolute warrior, the overcomer, the person who can – who will – overcome. See the marathon runner, the one who endures, and the one who will make it through. Wear that as your badge of honor today. And tomorrow. And the next day.
Take hold of what you can become and view who you are now differently because of it.
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Excerpt from Luka Vaughan’s upcoming book, “The Road Back”
Photo: ClickFlashPhotos/Flickr
“Look in the mirror. See the resolute warrior, the overcomer, the person who can – who will – overcome.” This quote hit me very hard. I too have used fantasy, sci-fi and video games to escape the world my whole life as well. I blurted everything out to my mom yesterday and even confronted my abuser who was a very close family member. I was trying to play World of Warcraft today to escape everything that was going on around me and got incredibly discouraged, that I could never be as strong as the hero in the game, I can… Read more »
I am guilty to having done this to a child who is important to me and at a time when he is figuring out who he is. I am guilty and I am very regretful of what I did. It was done to me as well, but I still used him even though I exactly know how it feels like after the abuse. I just want to ask for help as to how I could somehow help my victim. 🙁 I ask for forgiveness if I offend anyone reading this here. But I am desperate. I don’t want him to… Read more »
Guilty Offender,
We hear your desperation and have asked for help from some of our allies on how to help.
We strongly recommend you visit http://www.malesurvivor.org or reach out to their Executive Director, Chris Anderson.
Please feel free to send us a direct message via Facebook if you need Chris’ email address. Our Facebook page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/thegoodmenproject
Thank you, thank you so much!
Guilty Offender I just wanted to let you know that I think its really brave of you to seek help. And I hope you are doing well. Its important for the offenders to heal too so this dosent happen again and our society dosen’t respect that enough.
Gavin, that was a part of HIS shame and HIS experience as a child. Abuse is confusing and traumatic for a variety of reasons and is experienced differently by everyone. I know I had shame and confusion regarding the gender of my abuser AND being sexually exploited. You can’t tell someone else how they should have processed their trauma as a child. He was just relating how he felt about it then. I can completely relate.
While I enjoyed the article and, for the most part, the message is good, there is a problem here. You talk about shame based on being ‘a boy being used as the “girl” in a one sided sexual relationship’. We who have been sexually abused all struggle with shame but to promote the idea that the shame is about being treated as a female sends a very misogynist and homophobic message. This would imply that if we are male and our abuse was female then there is no shame. This is not true at all. The shame grows out of… Read more »
Hi, Gavin
Thanks for your very relevant observation. The article is a chapter in my forthcoming book, which is entirely autobiographical, so I appreciate that its perspective is geared less towards a sweepingly accurate statement than it is to what was actually true for me. I fully concur with your observation in general, and since the book is forthcoming, will carefully reassess my words to embrace this important perspective. Humbly, I thank you.
Luka