Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hi, this is Rachel and my
cover. We guest special guest today with
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us and that she's going to tell
us a little bit about herself and then
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we're going to ask her some questions. Great, very Rachel. I'm a
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net shooster, I'm got sh I'm
a mom, I'm grandma, I'm a
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great grandma and I also have a
passion for working in the area of sexual
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abuse awareness and Prevention, education and
victim advocacy. Okay, we're going to
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ask you. How did you choose
your this as your career? I don't
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know that I I guess I chose
it, but I think it really chose
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me because of my story. I
was sexually and physically and emotionally abused from
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the time I was about five until
I was twelve years old, which kind
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of really set the background in their
framework for my life. It definitely wasn't
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my my life plan that this is
kind of work I wanted to do,
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but as I did my own recovery
work and Inter stood my own story,
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it became my passion. Okay,
what are some of the challenges you face
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and educating people about sexual abuse?
I think the greatest challenge is, I
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just think not just our culture,
but I think everyone tends to want to
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live in denial that this could be
a possibility that they need to be concerned
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about in their own home, in
their churches and their schools, in their
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places their children, you know,
at and were its sports clubs or music
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or anything that their kids participate in. I think we want to believe that
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we live in a safe world,
where we don't, and so when people
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are living in fear or they live
in denial, and makes it very hard
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for people to want to listen.
So, for instance, if I go
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to an airport and I tell people
I do a counseling, they will talk
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to me and if they're on my
flight, they'll talk to me until we
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land, if we're sitting anywhere near
each other. But if I tell them
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I teach sexual abuse awareness and Prevention
Education, most times they will say,
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oh, that's that's that's great and
they walk away and not talk to me
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again. So I think people are
afraid. I would have to say you're
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probably right. What have you learned
about male sexual abuse? I've I've learned,
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although there are no statistics that I'm
aware of that back up what I'm
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going to say, that it is
just like with with female sexual abuse.
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It is much more prevalent than anybody
could ever know. You know, with
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statistics the only thing we have is
people who've actually reported their abuse to police
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and they had become part of a
statistic. Well, most victims never report
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their abuse. That's true whether you're
male or female. But in working with
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men I found as hard as it
is for women to report their abuse to
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anybody, whether it's a friend,
accounts or a parent, you know,
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anybody, it's much more difficult for
men because there's that assumption that men are
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strong, if that the should happen
to men, and if it does happen
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to men, then maybe they're gay
and there's just so there's just different levels
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of shame attached to male sexual abuse
now that it's different from male and female
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once that worse or better, but
I think men have an even harder time
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talking about it than Whenen do.
Now I can see that it's that has
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been what I have noticed as well. Usually it requires lots of alcohol evolved
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before they'll even talk about it.
Or I have a fairly new client.
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That really is they were talking about. He was talking about his story.
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He he perfectly described having been date
rape to me, having gone to a
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party, having had something to drink
and not remembering anything else the entire rest
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of the night. But very,
very clear that there had been sexual activity
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and he has no idea with who
or anything, he just knows that it
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happened. And so for men who
who are gay, they feel like they
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didn't they can't report sexual abuse because
they're gay and no one's going to believe
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them, just like women often are
are are very right and concerned about whether
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they'll be believed or not. Yeah, that's that's a big issue. was
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just not believing people when they come
forward. Well, and then you add
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the complications of the way that our
legal system is set up, which is
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if you do, if you do
make a report to police and police find
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that they have enough of what they
consider enough evidence to be able to arrest
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somebody and and press charges, then
what happens with that? Even if a
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person that's been accused has been arrested, gone to an inch court hearing those
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charges, then go to the prosecutor's
office and there's a prosecutorial team that decides
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whether there's a very high likelihood that
they'll get a guilty verdict. If it
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goes to trial out or they can
get some kind of guilty plea and if
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they even with some confessions, even
if there's a confession, sometimes they'll feel
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like they the likelihood of getting one
up plea or a verdict is is very
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slim. They just won't prosecute the
case. So they'll drop those charges and
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those no public record of any of
that taking place and because there's been no
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criminal charges, you cannot look it
up anywhere on a court website. If
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someone's trying to get fingerprint clearance cards, they can because there's no record of
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any charges and and any convictions.
So even if you do go forward in
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the place and the prosecutor's office believe
believe you, it doesn't mean it's going
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to result in justice. Yeah,
it's. I mean, I mean I
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wonder if it's like that for any
other crimes as much. Well, I
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don't know why it would not be
the same for for crimes and all crimes.
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Take Courage to report, but I
think reporting and it's a huge violation
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right of your safety and your person, like if your house gets broken into.
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But there's just something very, very
different, very personal about wanting and
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needing justice. If you're going to
go through the courage of exposing your story.
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And if you're a child making a
report, then you're protected by law.
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Your name doesn't end up anywhere,
nobody, unless you involved in case
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nobody knows who it is. But
if in your adult you're not protected,
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so you expose yourself. Nobody's too
embarrassed about their house getting broken into,
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but there is always just a very
detrimental shame when you've been sexually violated.
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Yes, I'm definitely you work with
a lot of different countries, what have
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you. What has been your experience
and noticing the differences working with each culture?
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Well, to be fair, it's
probably been about it's been about two
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years since I worked in other countries. I was in Bosnia, Croatia,
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Serbia, in Germany, but in
some ways I found things very similar it.
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When I was getting ready to leave
the United States to go work,
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people here said, Oh Gosh,
yes, you need to go there and
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do that because they've got a terrible
problem over there. And when I got
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to Bosnia, which was my primary
place of teaching, I heard, well,
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we're only doing this because we're trying
to become part of the European Union.
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I know you in the United States
have a really big problem, but
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we don't, and so I think
there's a similarity. Nobody believes they have
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a problem and everybody else has a
bad problem, but but them. But
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one of the challenges there is,
at least at that point in time,
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there was really no structure for making
reports. As difficult as it is for
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children to be believed here, they're
just was and an authority structure for anyone
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to go to. There wasn't any
call the police and the Department of Social
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Services and there just wasn't a structure. They would just beginning to try to
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think about creating those things, but
it didn't exist. So I think,
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as I think, as inadequate as
our system is, and I mean we've
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made a lot of progress over the
last thirty or forty years, they're just
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in their infancy of trying to figure
out what do you do, what are
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the effects of trauma? How do
you how do you even go through a
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home reporting and legal process? So
it really felt a lot more hopeless over
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there. Like well, I could
tell them what it teach the kids,
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but if use was and what it
wasn't, telling them to go to a
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scholl counselor or cut a good or
to go to the school director so that
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there's an authority structure like we would
have her reporting structure. There was none.
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So my hope, my biggest hope
when I was teaching there, is
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to let them know that, no
matter what the circumstances were, wasn't their
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fault. It was the responsibility of
the person that harmed them, even if
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there was nobody that believe them,
nothing that could be done to stop it.
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They had done nothing to cause this
to happen. Yet school after school
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there were kids who who reported abuse
to myself and my interest corpreter, translator.
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It is really difficult not to have
somewhere for them to go to get
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help. Yeah, that can be
frustrating and disheartening. Yeah, it was
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very hard. How much have you
noticed a spiritual abuse and sexual abuse being
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tied together? Well, I think
there's a lot of layers to answering that
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question. I think in one sense
all sexual abuse as spiritual abuse attached to
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it. I think even if I
have someone that comes and shares with me
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that isn't a touch to any particular
belief system or not, or made just
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clearly believe they don't believe in any
God. Eventually within our work they will
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say, well really, if God
was such a good loving God, then
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why did he allow so? So
I think there is. There is spiritual
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abuse with all sexual abuse, but
there is also formal structures of spiritual abuse,
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whether it's halts, where there's in
all abuse has rituals to it,
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but whether it's a cult like a
spiritual abuse, whether it's whether it's ongoing
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harm of people who might be in
churches that report abuse and the perpetrator gets
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protected in the VIC and silence do
they don't know how to help. Our
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care for the victims of victims are
victim shame. I think spiritual abuse leaves
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its way very deeply into all sexual
abuse, very different wayers of it.
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What has been your struggle working with
the church in the United States when it
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comes to sexual abuse? I think
again it's their sense of either yeah,
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that denial that it's going to happen
here. They'll be churches who may say,
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you know, we're really close knit
family, we know everybody here.
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This type of thing doesn't happen here, but we all know each other very
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well, so that's not a need. I've had one church tell me that
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you know their focuses on evangelism and
not social issues, and I could talk
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about that one for a long time. I mean elaborate on that. I
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bist. Well, it was very
clear that I didn't have a voice and
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wasn't allowed to speak to that.
But if I had been given permission to
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speak to that, it was like, how do you expect to evangelize people
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who believe God isn't good? Our
God is equal to their abuser when they've
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been sexually abused? If you can't
address those, those wounds, our you
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to evangelize and tell somebody there's a
good, good God, a good Jesus
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you're supposed to believe in and trust
with your life. When their questions will
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be will either they're not good because
they allowed it to happen. I'm being
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punished for something because they allowed it
to happen, so I must be bad
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and they must be good, or
they must be bad and don't care about
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me. So but as I in
that particular cases, I started to try
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to ask questions, I was quickly
shut down. There are some churches that
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do a really good job and I
think while the Catholic church is the first
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church where it was exposed on really
international basis and they you know well,
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I have no doubt abuse continues in
their church, like it continues in every
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church and every denomination. They they
raised awareness. So churches, some churches,
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really care and they work hard to
create children's programs, structure their building
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so that there's accountability, do good
education for parents and staff and leaders and
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kids when it's appropriate there. But
I find the percentage of churches and denominations
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that do that are very small and
comparison to those who just don't want to.
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So I don't remember how many years
ago it was now, but there
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was a friend mind that was doing
some research in the social working programs she
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was in and she wanted to do
a survey of Churches pertinuing to their knowledge
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of sex trafficking. So we were
going to combine that along with their knowledge
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of sexual abuse and how it might
play out in the church and the needs
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due prevention. And we sent out
like four hundred surveys and we got about
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ten back. Most on the part
where it says do they believe sexual abuse
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is a potential issue in their church? They said no, but there were
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a few that were actually honest and
said it's just too expensive and, Franquin,
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we don't have the time for it
or the problems that it could bring
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up. So that was definitely very
discouraging to hear. So and that's part
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of why the program that I've created
we actually offer it for free. So
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there are no excuses for not being
able to offer this and and make churches
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a safe place. But I think
they're again fear and then denial make it
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very good have. So it's tell
us a little bit about your program.
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It's called kids need to know,
foundation ink, and I I created it
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back when I went back to start
my bachelor's degree so that I could move
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forward and get my masters and counseling, and the first project we had was
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we needed to do something that could
somehow benefit society and I thought, really,
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that's enowful big ask. I don't
know how I'm supposed to benefit society
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and in a big way. But
then I thought about my own story and
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I thought, you know, if
I, if I, you know,
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if I had only known that I
should keep telling until somebody actually believe me,
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would my abuse of stopped? What
I've been believed, what I've been
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able to be a better advocate,
and so that's where it's the name kids
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need to know comes up. Came
from so back in two thousand into two
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thousand, kind of wrote my very
first drafts of this program for school and
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probably revised it every year since then. Then, around two thousand into created
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a nonprofit foundation where we teach free
sexual abuse awareness and Prevention Education to churches,
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public institutions, schools, we teach
it to parents and neighborhoods, wherever
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somebody actually wants to listen, we
do that. And then also I consult
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with churches to help them establish policies
and procedures and safe physical premises for their
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their children so that we can reduce
that risk that abuse takes place. Tell
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us a little bit about your training
at the Lander Center and in your education.
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So I graduating from what is now
the Seattle School of Theology and psychology
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in two thousand and two. It
was marscale graduate school at that point in
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time and and there were so many
things that were very unique about their training.
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First of all, you didn't get
to just go to a seminary and
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say you're a Christian counselor you really
you had to learn how to read text
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soon culture. How do you engage
the text the culture and are you getting
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engage the stories of those where there's
been hard? So their approach really had
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good, solid theory, but it
also helped you understand how to integrate the
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theory with theology as you invited people
into understanding their story and how they got
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to where they are. And and
so another thing that I think was pretty
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unique is that we really had to
be doing our own work at the very
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same time that we were learning how
to do the work, and so that
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was really powerful. In Our practicums
we learned about telling our story, learning
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how to be a tuned how to
listen to story, how to be willing
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to share story and let other people
engage us in our stories. So it
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was it was it was really life
changing for me. And then, I
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think, if I'm correct, it
was two thousand and eleven, was the
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first cohort of lay and professional people
that that the allender center took through a
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whole process. And that was good
because I had I had graduated back in
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two thousand and four. So it
was good because, as with all fields,
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you learn more of we know.
We knew a whole lot more in
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two thousand and eleven about how the
brain works and how trauma affects the brain
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and in the entire body. Then
we knew back in two thousand and four.
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We know even more now. So
I think I'm going training is really
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important, but it just continued.
It re emphasized the story work that I'd
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already learned about when I was in
school. It was just good to learn
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more, okay, and one thing
that's great about that program it takes lay
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people who haven't had any professional training
and helps them learn how to engage the
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stories of the wounded in churches.
And they're not professionally trained, but they
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they go through extensive training to understand
the dynamics of abuse, their own stories
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and how they're in a safe way
engage others as a lay person when in
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the bend, when people needed to
see somebody professional, how they know what
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to do with that? What is
some of the best advice you could give
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victims out there? Gosh, there
so much even as adults, not to
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give up and trying to find a
community that will hear them, know how
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to embrace them and help them be
heard and go through their story. They
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need a community of people to walk
through the tragedies, the hordes of what
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their their stories were, and also
to help them walk into something that's healthier
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for their lives, begin to figure
out, like what does really matter to
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them and to how gosh to UN
just to unravel, I think, all
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of the lies that come with being
sexually abused and understand how it has affected
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their life, how they then responded
to their abuse and how it's affecting their
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life and the relationships now, and
begin to dream about what they'd like to
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do differently as a new forward.
And then also, I think victims don't
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understand that they have. There's a
lot of rights that they have in most
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states where many, many states there's
no statue of limitations of reporting your abuse,
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and what we do know about perpetrators
is they really don't ever just abuse
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one person. They will continue to
abuse unless they're stopped. And so although
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the process is is a it's just
a very exhausting, difficult process that is
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always available to them if that's something
they want, and in most states there
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are. There is the opportunity to
also file civil suits and especially in the
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Evangelical World, people say that you're
not you know, you're not supposed to
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sue your brother or sister in Christ. But the reality is it's very rare
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that the criminal justice system can offer
first any type of justice to the victim,
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but also any EXP if they if
they can't follow through and they don't
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file prosecute the case to the end, then there's never any exposure of the
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perpetrator. So there are numerous stories
that I could tell where, because of
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the ability to file a civil suit, perpetrators are able to be exposed.
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They were able to be stopped in
the sense that, like if their teachers
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and schools and they have this long
history of abuse, but it never got
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it never got exposed through the criminal
system. It has made, it does
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make a significant impact in the civil
system. So it isn't just about money.
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The ability to file a civil suit. There was a law here that
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we were trying to get changed in
Arizona about three years ago, which we
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did make changes in the law,
and there was a one man who told
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a story that he filed a lawsuit
for one dollar and he didn't care about
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the money, but the person in
the state that he grew up in that
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had been abusing him was a judge
and the civil suit gave him an avenue
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to expose that person and and so
that the abuse could be stopped where there
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wasn't that opportunity through the criminal system. And it just sounds odd, but
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I'm saying but until you've spent a
lot of time beginning to understand how it
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works, it is very odd.
So I think for victims to to explore
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not not out of a sense of
revenge, because you're never going to be
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satisfied if you pursue criminal or civil
avenues of trying to find some justice this,
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but out of a sense of I
am a victim, this person has
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harm me and really likelihood is he's
he or she is continued to harm others
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and justice to me is that there's
exposure, I believed, and the possibly
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that person can be stopped. And
it certainly doesn't hurt that. Sometimes there
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are financial benefits from it, but
you consider how much money people pay in
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counseling and the cost that sexual abuse
has had in their mental alners, their
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relations, you know, their relationships, I don't think that there's anything inappropriate
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about the possibility of being some financial
compensation. You know, if somebody goes
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through a criminal process they're going to
be asked to pay restitution. Well,
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if you can't go through a criminal
process, and this is really is just
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a form of Restigen that's available to
people. In mostly I do a do
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I interview a lot of survivors,
and one of the things we talked about
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like, how has this impacted you
financially, and how is this affecting your
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career, and how is this effected
your relationships, and you're so like your
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ability to have a social life,
and I mean usually it's not all of
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those things, but there's usually two
three check marks on how those things have
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affected them. And I don't think
even victims realize how much this has taken
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from them, even like just financially
or careerwise, are what they would have
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done differently careerwise if this hadn't happened, specially with APTSD, basically changing the
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brain, and so I mean that
can be definitely an effective like have a
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huge impact on those who have been
long term, like education. Is Hard
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to focus on school when your brains
not profit processing correctly. Right, and
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it's not just our brains, our
bodies are affected, our immune systems.
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You know, there's there's a significant
amount of research that talks about different types
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of arthritis, has cancers, multiple
autoimmune diseases can be traced back to their
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being trauma. So one of the
ways that they began to discover this there's
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a test called it's called aces and
it's really a test that helps evaluate the
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kind of childhood experience. It's called
the first childhood experiences and in the doctor
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helped discover this because Hegan to see
patterns in kids that have been abused that
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were showing up as medical issues.
So yeah, it it's relationships, it's
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mental health, it's physical health.
There's a lot that it takes from victims
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and you can money will never replace
those things, but sometimes money can help
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someone who finally is able to get
into counseling and then had the passionate sites
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that they want to go to school, or it can help them build the
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life that has. There's a lot
of treatments out there, like MDR and
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neuro feedback, that aren't necessarily always
covered by insurance. Well and even and
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even when treat therapy is covered by
insurance, it's really horribly inadequate. You
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might get anywhere from six to maybe
fifteen, twenty, Max twenty visits in
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a year. That's not going to
do much for a victim. They don't
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hardly trust their their stories with somebody. In twenty visits, so to say,
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they can have six, twelve,
fifteen, twenty visits in a year
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and then, well, hold on. No matter where you were when you
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were in processing, you're beginning to
trust your therapis come back next year when
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you use the rest of your sessions
right or when you're ready for new sessions.
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So even if you have insurance,
it often is really inadequate when it
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comes to yeah, and then a
lot of people, I mean some of
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the better therapists, don't take insurance
because they don't have to write. Well,
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because they don't have to not necessary, yes and no, but they
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also don't want to have dictated to
them what they can and cannot do for
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therapy. You know, there needs
to be good practices and need to be
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guidelines, but most most therapy modalities
through insuances are going to be brief therapy.
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They're going to be, you know, cognitic behavioral therapy, which is
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beneficial. Their AMDR is more and
more a standard now of trauma care and
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insurances recover some of that, but
it's still isn't adequate for what most victims
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need. So I think sometimes there
are people, good therapists, that don't
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do insurances because they really want to
offer their clients the best they have.
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And so most a lot of those
therapists offer a sliding scale and they don't
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get paid, but they would get
paid if they were to work for insurances
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because they really want to see victims
have an opportunity to heal. Some do
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get their full fee and have clientele
that can pay it, but ultimately it
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isn't about so much the money,
it's about wanting people to have access to
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good yes, and they're definitely a
lot of good counselors out there that,
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you know, work for peanuts.
So and because, I mean, I
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did narrow feedback, but that wasn't
necessarily through a counselor, and I would
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say I mean I was in there
for days a week. I mean that's
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just that's time consuming right, right. And you know, the people that
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have gone to school have had to
pay quite a bit for their training and
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you know they have to earn amicum
as well. And yet the reality is
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abuse often harms people's ability to make
the incomes that they could make. So
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they need to be able to have
the treatment significate. Yeah, it's no,
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it's a I mean yeah, because, I mean I think you know,
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the impact of trauma on some level
almost always has an impact on abilities
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for us earn just because we have
emotional sick days where we can't get at
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of bed because we're depressed today and
more so than a person who doesn't have
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trauma. So or just all the
autoimmune and all the health issues that come
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with it. So right, trying
to balance all of that, especially with
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our healthcare in America, but that's
a whole other issue, right. Well,
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and then you think about it.
I mean, I don't know enough
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to say what every country offers,
but if you live in a country that
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doesn't have a system that even deals
with abuse, then you're not going to
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have I mean, the field of
psychotherapy is not common in most countries.
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You know, there's there's a lot
of countries that don't have psychotherapist and they
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don't have counseling and they don't have
medication either. You know they don't.
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They don't know how, they don't
diagnose the Mento own this. So I
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think in one sense we have a
lot here in America, that it is
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advanced, but I also think we
have so much more that we need to
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learn and so that we can continue
to reduce the risk of abuse. To
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help those who are offenders, that's
a whole nother story of talking about what
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need you know kind of what's the
mindset and one goes on for offenders and
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what is the recovery? If there
is recovery for them, how do they
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reintegrate into society? That recidivism r
there's so much and we can't just look
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at the victim, you know,
we have to also look at those who
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are going to means and that's a
whole other set of counseling and I mean
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you know whether you're dealing. I
mean we have a episode coming up and
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by the time this comes out,
this is it'll be out with Dr and
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Assalter. I don't know if you've
read. Oh, I do pedophiles.
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Let's to rate US pedophiles and other
sex offenders. I mean, she really
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is afforded my work a lot.
So let's get you got the interview.
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Actually interviewed her Saturday, so one
day listen to the episode. Yeah,
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definitely would love to. I recommend
her book all the time and that's coming
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back next week to finish her her
interview. Thanks for listening. I hope
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to hear from my audience if they
are liking my shows and if you have
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comments feedback, that would be greatly
appreciated. As always, you can contact
375
00:35:14.079 --> 00:35:20.039
us on our social media platforms or
on Rachel and Recoverycom and always listen to
376
00:35:20.199 --> 00:35:23.440
us and subscribe to your favorite podcast
platform. Thanks. Guys,
