MONKEY WRENCH EFFECT

Published February 12, 2017 by Nan Mykel

The Monkey Wrench Effect is a way of looking at the damage of incest, based on the child victim’s developmental stage when first molested. It is as though a monkey wrench had been thrown into the child’s developmental machinery, interfering with the learning tasks of that and later stages. (191)

Girls first molested before the age of nine are affected differently than those who are first molested after the age of nine, as measured by the Rorschach inkblot procedure and reported by Zivney, Nash, and Hulsey (1988, 99). This is a remarkable finding. Age of victimization, then, can affect the way they see the world–or at least inkblots they have to make sense out of. Based on the responses, girls first abused after the age of nine appeared to be angrier, and those in the younger group more depressed and needy.

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi

TRAUMATIC SEXUALIZATION

Published February 11, 2017 by Nan Mykel

“Sexual abuse experiences, particularly at the hands of close relatives, almost invariably disrupt the developmental sequences that characterize normal psychosexual maturation. Once these experiences occur, they are reclaimed as body memories even if (in some cases) details of the abuse are unavailable to the victim’s conscious memory (Maddock and Larson, 1995)

Eroticizing – The most insidious, lingering and destructive effect of the incest was its impact on my developing sexuality. I suspect that this is true for other survivors.

According to Finkelhor (1986, 181) traumatic sexualization refers to “a process in which a child’s sexuality (including both sexual feelings and sexual attitudes) is shaped in a developmentally inappropriate and interpersonally dysfunctional fashion as a result of the sexual abuse.” Experiences in which the offender makes an effort to evoke a sexual response from the child, for example, would be more sexualizing than those in which an offender simply uses a passive child to masturbate with (182).

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi

Under 2:00 – Silence

Published February 11, 2017 by Nan Mykel

The first part of Brian’s experience is on his site.

Owning It

Under 2:00 Part 2

In my shock, I dreaded what my Dad was going to say. My only job was to protect my twin sister, his favorite. I couldn’t even protect myself. He was going to hate me when he found out.

But no one ever said a word. Nothing. Not even yelling at me for being so pathetic. I dreaded and waited and nothing. Dread was my punishment.

My parent’s silence was how they screamed Shame. I started hearing it leak out in comments, nothing direct, never direct. Soon everything was a backhanded stab. I filled in the clarifier at the end of sentences that they never said out loud. Praises were tainted, I knew they meant to add “…for a sissy”. No matter what words they used, what they wanted to say was “weakling”, “pussy”. They hated me so much they couldn’t even stomach a whisper. It…

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sterling elocution

Published February 11, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Inspiring.

a poem in my pocket

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

Like Solomon, who wrote these words, I find soul satisfaction in beautiful speech. As a writer, I search for delicious words to be framed in serendipitous syntax. I hope to pick ripe thoughts, artfully arrange them in woven-word baskets and serve a taste of lingual delights. I admire skilled poets and appreciate how different poetic brushstrokes reveal textured perspectives; unique angles on life’s truth. Flighty images of the mind settle to roost in solid words. Sentinel ideas on signposts outline silent spaces for contemplation. Hand-in-hand, we meander world with senses alert to the wild call of hurricane winds or the fresh whisper of gentle breezes, then collectively record richly scripted delicacies for our hungry souls to feast on.

*Proverbs 25:11, BRG

photo by lynn – Galveston beach

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POLITICAL ANGST –a 2015 poem for d’verse

Published February 10, 2017 by Nan Mykel

POLITICAL ANGST*

I don’t like to be angry,

I don’t like to be sad.

But those damn congressmen

are making me mad.

What pricks with little dicks

can’t stand the word vagina?

(From my poem in Time Wrinkles* after a Congressman objected to the use of the word “vagina” in the Michigan House of Representatives June 14, 2012.)

New Challenge: To Reject Trump the Perverse, Poets Wage a Battle in Verse – An Excerpt

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

(This may be an alternate truth) from Nicholas Kristof 9-2- 2017: NY Times Op-Ed page

trump-poetry-illegal Some people stand up to President Trump in the courts, others in street protests. And the poets among us, they battle President Trump with an arsenal of verse….

Susan McLean, a poet and English professor at Southwest Minnesota State University:

Trump seethes at what the writers say.
He’ll pull the plug on the N.E.A.
The joke’s on him. Art doesn’t pay.
We write our satires anyway.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/opinion/

HE’s PRESIDENT OF WHAT!?

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

trumo-allegianc

BETRAYAL: Dialog with Serena

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Serena’s comment: Nan, that’s a useful insight. I’m nervous, though, about the descriptor “more”. I would say the dynamics are simply different. For example a child abused by a teacher who is their hero/ine. Or by a priest who is the conduit of their daily prayers to their Creator, who they love? Having said that I agree it’s about Trust. Not a word I understand, I’m afraid.

Photo courtesy of Faisal Jawaid info@www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gdj.gdj.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/kits-photography-3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://graphicdesignjunction.com/2013/07/kids-photography/&h=750&w=500&tbnid=0sYvrGsLE8-ErM&tbnh=275&tbnw=183&usg=__TxaMRYu_LpNDk4KTslifxXTYJlA=&docid=YFx0JFHX82-3wM

Nan’s Reply: Yes, I agree that as stated by Shengold is a bit confusing. I just now clarified in my post that these words were his own. I think he’s narrowing himself to the issue of broken trust. I don’t think I’m saying it very well. Finkelhor (1986) outlined four different damaging effects of Incest (powerlessness, damaged goods, betrayal and damage to the victim’s sexuality.) Under the rubric of “incest” he included both blood and non-blood incest (to include such caregivers as babysitters, coaches, teachers, clergymen, etc.).

When someone says “I don’t get mad, I get even,” it is likely that he or she has experienced betrayal. It is one of Finkelhor’s four factors in child sexual abuse, and carries with it anger, depression, clinging, impaired judgment of others, and isolation. When the child’s personhood is disregarded and they are related to only as a sex object, there is also bitterness. “At the moment of abuse, with its profound betrayal of relational and generational boundaries, illusion is forever smashed.” (Frawley-O’Dea 1997, 95).

THE ABOVE IS THE KIND OF EXPLORATION AND EXCHANGE that I welcome. Feel free to share your thoughts and/or experience.

BETRAYAL

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

According to Shengold, “sexual abuse by a parent is more traumatic than by other individuals, due to the level of betrayal involved. In later relationships it is not unusual for survivors to evidence their ambivalence by vacillating between rage and passivity. Extreme dependence and an inablity to assess the trustworthiness of others are also common. In the absence of healing, prognosis for a good marriage is guarded, due to what Shengold calls a “pseudorelatedness that disguises a deeply seated misrust of others based on experienced reality,” (Shengold, 1989, 315).

I remember the story my father told me about a man who was urging his child to jump in the water, assuring the child that she or he would be caught. Finally, in a leap of faith, the child jumped in and the father stepped aside and did not catch the child. My father said, “The lesson is, don’t ever trust anyone.” (p 176)

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi

DAMAGED GOODS

Published February 9, 2017 by Nan Mykel

Herman…observes that “the profound sense of inner badness becomes the core around which the abused child’s identity is formed.” (1992, 105). Blume refers to the child’s sense of being “soiled and spoiled.” (1990, 244).

“The notion that a truly evil ‘other’ is embedded deep within the victimized daughter is a reflection of the sexual nature of her violation. The penetration of the body is experienced as the penetration of her true self, creating within her psychic being a place of evil and shame that is a source of stigma and self-hatred.” –Janet Liebman Jacobs, 1944).

My father stressing that “boys want only one thing” undoubtedly fed into my self-devaluation. I assume now that at that moment he was excluding himself, but I was not sufficiently quick or brazen to call him on it. (p. 172)

From FALLOUT: A Survivor Talks to Incest Offenders (and Others) by moi:

	petrujviljoen on HELPING, NOT HURTING
	Here goes \| NANMYKEL… on Here goes
	Dr. John Persico Jr. on Here goes
	Nan Mykel on So that’s what happened,…
	Nan Mykel on HELPING, NOT HURTING

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*Proverbs 25:11, BRG

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*(From my poem in Time Wrinkles after a Congressman objected to the use of the word “vagina” in the Michigan House of Representatives June 14, 2012.)

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(From my poem in Time Wrinkles* after a Congressman objected to the use of the word “vagina” in the Michigan House of Representatives June 14, 2012.)