Abuse: When Home Isn't a Haven
Editor's note: Jared just turned 16 and recently ordained a priest. He had one more merit badge and a project before he received his Eagle Scout award. His parents were active in the Church, having had numerous leadership positions. They described Jared as a “great kid” and had no problems with him until about a year ago.
At that time, Mom accidentally walked in on Jared looking at pornography on the family computer. The parents confronted him, had him meet with the bishop and thought they had the problem handled. But last month Jared’s three-year-old sister came and told mom that Jared had been playing a touching game with her and she didn’t like it. The parents immediately called the authorities and the bishop. After the investigation was completed, Jared was charged with a felony sexual offense and was now sitting in the bishop's office for help.
It is tragic that the information about the various types of abuse and how to deal with its effects is relevant to so many members of the Church today. One of the best articles discussing abuse is “Avoiding Abuse and Overcoming its Effects in the Family” by M. Gawain Wells and Leslie Feinauer. The following is an excerpt from that article.
Abuse — based on wrongful desire — a desire to hurt, a desire to control others or use them for one’s own gratification, or even a lack of desire to care for someone else’s needs.
Abuse in the family is a complex and painful tragedy. Many factors contribute to such hurt, and the effects of abuse may influence family members even across generations. It is important to remember that the power of the gospel, coupled with appropriate care from compassionate leaders and professionals can greatly help both the abuser and the abused, freeing them from the pain, sorrow, and captivity they may feel. We must let neither our anger at someone’s abuse nor our fear of a difficult and painful situation keep us from overcoming the problem. For the sake of the entire family, we must get help quickly.
Physical abuse represents an act in which a spouse, parent, or caretaker deliberately inflict physical injury upon another. Slapping a person’s face, pulling hair, or throwing someone against a wall is abusive. Similarly, objects used to inflict punishment such as belts, hairbrushes, or sticks are used to hurt someone, not to teach or correct a problem.
Neglect occurs when a child or elder is not given adequate love, supervision, or attention. Proper food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care may be lacking. In contrast to physical abuse, the attitude of neglect is usually one of “Don’t bother me. I don’t care what you need. You’re not getting it from me.”
Sexual abuse refers to the involvement of a child or adolescent in sexual activities that they are developmentally too immature to understand or give consent to. It may also include forced sexual activities between married or unmarried adults. Sexual abuse ranges from exposing people against their will to sexual images, to fondling of sexual parts, to rape. The common denominator is treating someone else as though that person were an object to be used for sexual pleasure.
Verbal abuse refers to consistent emotional indifference, rejection, or verbal punishment. Verbal abuse may be particularly difficult to recognize and remediate because individuals often do not feel guilty when they hurt others with words. Name calling, demeaning comments, or cutting sarcasm may not seem like abuse, but the intent is the same as in physical abuse, and the victim’s sense of being rejected, unloved, and unable to please can be profound.
Emotional abuse , like verbal abuse, represents an attempt to inflict emotional pain through humiliation, rejection, or psychological control. It is usually present with all other forms of abuse and is potentially the most harmful, but the most difficult to identify and correct. Without any other action or even words, a withering look, the “silent treatment,” avoiding eye contact, or turning away in disgust by a parent can be devastating to a child who desperately wants to please.
Spiritual abuse may not be found in any legal text, but it can apply to a believing people. This term refers to one’s using Church doctrine or scripture as a weapon for domination, a means to gratify one’s pride, or to hurt another through creating inappropriate guilt and shame. For example, a husband may use Ephesians 5:22 (“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands”) as a means of demanding improper or unwanted sexual activity when the context of the scripture provides a virtually opposite meaning. President Spencer W. Kimball, commenting on Ephesians 5:25 (“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it”) offered this counsel:
Can you think of how (Christ) loved the church? Its every breath was important to him. Its every growth, as ever individual, was precious to him. He gave to those people all his energy, all his power, all his interest. He gave his life — and what more could one give? .
When the husband is ready to treat his household in that manner, not only his wife but also his children will respond to his loving and exemplary leadership. It will be automatic. He won’t need to demand it.
Consider again the common psychological themes in the several forms of abuse: a desire to hurt or inflict pain, a desire for total control of another, and a desire to gratify oneself without regard for another’s feelings. Both women and men can be guilty of this desire for “unrighteous dominion” (D&C 121:39). A wife can demean her husband’s efforts to provide for his family, can constantly repudiate his normal desires for affection and intimacy, or demand that a husband isolate himself from his family of origin, using as a weapon the scripture in Moses 3:24. (“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh”.)
Moreover, siblings can abuse one another in similar ways. Perhaps for that reason, King Benjamin declared that parents who have the Spirit of the Lord with them will not allow their children to fight and quarrel with one another but will teach them to love and serve one another (see Mosiah 4:14, 15).
Causes of Abuse
Some acts are simply evil, with no other explanation than that the abuser is gratified by his or her behaviors. Concerned only about themselves, these abusers have little desire to change their ways. They may justify their actions by blaming others. Yet even for these offenders, abuse may have grown out of a pattern of behavior which began as less damaging. Spankings may turn into beatings. The spiral of pornography that first trapped individuals by suggestive advertising may escalate into seeking pornography, followed by seeking harder and more and more explicit forms of pornography, and from there into behavioral acts of sexual abuse and violence.
Personal and chronic stress is sometimes a factor in abuse, in the form of financial pressures, a poor job or none at all, health problems, or severe marital difficulties. Physical and emotional isolation from relatives or other caring and supportive people also increases stress, leaving a person with a feeling of having no place to turn for relief. Women experiencing major depression may feel that they are unable even to get out of bed to care for their youngsters, let alone laugh and play with them.
Some parents may feel overwhelmed and helpless to deal with a particular child and they may lash out in anger in moments when they feel inadequate. Children sometimes have physical or behavioral problems that make them difficult to parent. Tired and under pressure, people act out in ways they might never have thought they would, damaging their relationships. Sadly, because the pressures continue, they may return to such behaviors with increasing regularity and force.
Parents should remember that there is a great deal of difference between an isolated incident of lost temper where harshness is used and the occurrence of repeated and frequent abuse. While not minimizing the effects of any abuse, we should realize that parents sometimes punish themselves unduly — even to the extent that they lose hope of changing their behavior.
Effects of Abuse
Any abuse event, experienced or observed, to some degree makes children insecure. Early in life, most children accept what others say about them as accurate. Experiences in an abusive family may create for children a sense that they were not wanted, not protected, not good enough, or somehow “bad.” Every person has a deep need to be accepted and loved.
Distressed individuals find ways to avoid their internal pain, their feelings of anxiety, sadness, alienation, and rejection. Sometimes when these individuals become involved in intimate relationships with spouses and children, they are not able to contain their feelings of shame and “badness.” Their fears of inadequacy and frustration seep out into the relationships; they attempt to gain more control over situations in order to avoid being rejected.
Healings: Intervention and Treatment
Although the experience of abuse is devastating and its effects far reaching, much can be done to stop abuse and facilitate healings. Abused persons and their loved ones should consider the following steps.
1) Report the Abuse and Protect the Victim.
The best response to abuse is a clear message that it will not be tolerated. Moreover, in spite of the family crisis that it occasions, calling attention to the problem is often the critical step in overcoming it. Even though the offender will be remorseful and apologetic for the sinful act, the behavior is unlikely to stop unless there is intervention because nothing has changed in the pattern of interaction which provoked the abusive behavior.
Children are not powerful enough to stop the abuse but often approach someone they believe is trustworthy and might help them. It is also true that occasionally children may be prompted or “coached” to falsely report abuse. Angry or disturbed spouses or ex-spouses may misinterpret a child’s report and in alarm use a vague story like a weapon to hurt the other.
Similarly, adolescents may use “stories” as a dramatic way of getting back for supposed grievances against their fathers or stepfathers. The key is to take the report seriously, although in some cases it may take some time to confirm whether to believe the report.
2) Seek the Appropriate Treatment .
The experience of being abused as a child carried aftereffects long into adulthood. The ability to disentangle events, meanings, and abusive behaviors may require treatment from a trained therapist while individuals “wear out” the fear, anger, and shame or guilt surrounding the memories and find their way back to rebuilding their hope of a good life.
Professional counseling for problems of sexual abuse is extremely important for a child, although he or she may act as if everything is all right. Counseling is never an easy process. Throughout the counseling experience, the victim will need consistent encouragement and support from loving family, Church leaders, and the small circle of others who need to know. Victims must be reassured again and again that what they are doing is, finally, the way out of the effects of the trauma.
3) Provide Support.
Families recovering from abuse need the support of others. An understanding bishop and loving Church members can help by decreasing the sense of isolation, giving some respite with the children when extreme stress is felt, or bringing to bear the welfare resources of the Church for financial aid, employment, or professional counseling. The bishop, through his counsel and prayers, can help recovering individuals experience the healing that comes from the Savior. Like choosing to seek professional help, allowing other loved ones or Church leaders to participate is not easy, but it can be such a vital form of support.
Repentance & Forgiveness
The offender, through the healing power of the Savior’s Atonement, can truly be “born again,” washed clean of the entrapping history and set free of the compulsive feelings that prompted the abuse. It takes great courage and equally great humility to seek help or repentance, but “we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.”
The Deseret Book article “Avoiding Abuse and Overcoming its Effects in the Family” concludes with Elder H. Burke Peterson providing a list of questions fathers could ask themselves to determine whether they are abusing family members emotionally. The questions include the following and are adapted to apply to either parent:
1. Do I criticize family members more than I compliment them?
2. Do I insist that family members obey me because I am the parent or spouse?
3. Do I seek happiness more at work or somewhere other than home?
4. Do my children seem reluctant to talk to me about some of their feelings and concerns?
5. Do I attempt to guarantee my place of authority by physical discipline or punishment?
6. Do I find myself setting and enforcing numerous rules to control my family?
7. Do family members appear to be fearful of me?
8. Do I feel threatened by the notion of sharing with other family members the power and responsibility for decision making in the family?
9. Is my spouse highly dependent on me and unable to make decisions for himself or herself?
10. Does my spouse complain of insufficient funds to manage the household because I control all the money?
11. Do I insist on being the main source of inspiration for each family member rather than teaching each child to listen to the Spirit?
12. Do I often feel angry and critical toward family members?
Conclusion
Not a day goes by without another victim or perpetrator of some type of abuse enters my office. Abuse is not an isolated event to which most people are immune. The problem is epidemic. If there are known or even suspected cases of abuse which you are aware of, report it to the proper authority. This must be done to protect the victim from further damage and to help the perpetrator. Visit your bishop or branch president and as necessary a qualified professional counselor. Learn more from the resources listed below.
Find additional resources on abuse at the Mental Health Resource Foundation's website: Click here.
Avoiding Abuse and Overcoming its Effects in the Family from the book “Helping and Healing Our Families: Principles and Practices Inspired by The Family: A Proclamation to the World" can be purchased online at the BYU Bookstore here.
Statements from Church Leaders and Church Publications on Abuse can be found on the BYU Broadcasting Website.
Other LDS Resources on Abuse can be found at the Foundation's website on the Library Resource page.