Grooming: The Destructive Abuse That Never Ends via @BobbiLParish

*Trigger Warning*

Day after day I sit with survivors of childhood sexual abuse who feel worthless, powerless and to blame for the horror they endured. Making it worse, they receive repeated pressure from people in their lives to “put it behind you,” “get over it,” and “just let it go.” I’ve received the same demands and judgment from people in my own life. What those people fail to realize is the power of grooming – the brain washing most child victims of sexual abuse go through at the hands of their abuser.

Grooming

Grooming is the process that predators use to gain control over a child for the purpose of sexually abusing them. They use a series of manipulative behaviors, involving tangible and intangible means, to exploit the child while maintaining control over them so that they do not resist or report the abuse. There are generally considered to be six stages to the grooming process:

Targeting the Victim: The predator selects a child that he or she perceives as being needy, easily isolated and responsive to manipulation. This can be their own child – if they have several children, they will choose the one they feel is most susceptible to manipulation.
Building Trust: The predator actively engages with the child, showing them special attention and favor.
Filling a Need: In this stage, the predator begins to provide the child with something he or she perceives the child is missing and craving: attention, affection, approval or even protection against bullies.
Isolating the Child: Now that the predator has built trust and filled a need, they leverage that to isolate the child. They tell the child that their relationship is a secret, or that others wouldn’t approve of their friendship and would try to break up their friendship. When the secret is built upon shame and fear, the child begins to isolate himself or herself and the predator doesn’t even need to do it.
Sexualizing the Relationship: The predator now has all components of the grooming process in place in order to begin sexually abusing the child. The abuse will typically escalate over time.
Maintaining Control: At this point the predator actively abuses the child, while continuing to fill their needs and keep them isolated. Oftentimes, the abuser will now actively shame the child for “agreeing” to be an active participant in the sexual relationship. The shame is a very powerful silencing and isolating tool. The abuser has now become a significant source of meeting the child’s needs, so much so that the child fears losing the relationship and will acquiesce to the abuser’s requests. The child is now doubting his or her capacity to perceive reality, and relies upon the abuser’s statements about reality.

After the Abuse

Eventually, through reporting or circumstance, the abuse ends and sometimes the relationship with the abuser does as well, but the damage persists. The child grows into an adult riddled with shame, unable to trust their own perceptions of reality, and with contorted perceptions of what a loving relationship looks like. They feel unworthy, guilty and powerless. Long after the physical wounds of the abuse end, the emotional abuse lives on. Getting it out of our head is not as simple as declaring it gone. Not easily evicted from where it’s resided for years, it has powerful squatter’s rights. It is ingrained, by years of grooming, into the fabric of our thoughts and beliefs.

Picking out the threads of lies woven into our mind by our abuser takes time and care. We have to figure out what is the truth and what is the lie that our abuser taught us. It’s hard to tell the difference, because they have both existed in our minds for so long. They all look the same. We have to test one thread at a time, with judgment that is often skewed by the grooming we receive. It’s a flawed system trying to detect flawed thoughts. Grooming sets us up by creating a distorted thinking system. Even when someone tries to tell us the truth we question it.

Long-Term Effects of Grooming

I’ve sat with hundreds of survivors as they sort through their thoughts and beliefs, picking out and throwing away the lies. It’s not easy, and it’s not swift. Judgment from society and our loved ones that we should “leave the past behind us” doesn’t help. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do, but it isn’t simple. We can’t just rip the memories out of our head and throw them away. Even if we could, the memories aren’t the worst part of the abuse. The grooming, the feelings of worthlessness and blame, are the part that lingers on and undermines the good things that come into our life. Years after the physical abuse ends, the grooming continues to wreak havoc.

If you love a survivor, please educate yourself about grooming and its aftereffects. It will be very helpful as you support your loved one through the recovery process. If you’re a survivor be assured that you can eradicate the feelings of worthlessness, powerlessness and self-blame from your life, in time and with support from people who know and understand childhood trauma.

Get connected with the survivor community, where there is hope and help from people who have walked the same journey you are on. We will never tell you to “just get over it.” We will help you sort through the fibers, cull out the lies and fill in the spaces left behind with the truth of how incredible, strong, and powerful that you really are.