Confronting child abuse

GILLIAN KLAWANSKY

Speaking at the launch of the Chevrah Kadisha’s series of events tackling child abuse, Goldstein says: “While it’s not massive and widespread in our community, abuse is there.”

At this event author Jenny Braun shared her story of abuse, and therapist, abuse expert and author, Sue Hickey, provided tools for protecting your children.

Using her beautifully illustrated, poignant children’s book Fresja’s Story – which tells the story of a caterpillar who eats to hide from pain – as a starting point, Braun recounted the heart-breaking events that punctuated her initially happy, carefree childhood and haunted her into adulthood.

Losing her younger brother to cancer when she was just four years old, Jenny remembers the impact that a hospital Christmas party had on her – getting a gift for her brother from Father Christmas shortly before his death.

“This is the only memory I have of my brother. I blocked everything else out,” she said.

Tackling feelings of guilt for sometimes wishing her brother hadn’t stolen the limelight, four-year-old Jenny felt somewhat responsible for his death and started eating.

“Already at four, I experienced a taste of how food can block out feelings,” she said.

“One summer afternoon swimming at family friends, at the age of 11, my world changed,” said Jenny. She was molested there by a 16-year-old boy. It continued for three years.

“It was a very frightening and confusing time, I felt dirty and so guilty and bad, there was no way I could say anything to anyone. I didn’t know what to do with these scary feelings. My behaviour was atrocious, I’d shoplift and act out, crying out for help, not knowing how to ask.

“My parents knew something was wrong, but they didn’t know what. They sent me to therapy but I made a vow of silence, sitting there not saying a word.”

Using food as a coping mechanism, Jenny’s eating went out of control and she already weighed 94 kilograms at the age of 11. “I was trying desperately to dull my senses, to hide. As the years progressed, so did my eating and I lost and gained a total of 450 kg through the years, trying over 28 different diets.”

Jenny never told a soul, keeping quiet for 13 years, about the abuse she endured. “I later had a dear friend, Hadassah, who was integral to my transformation. She helped me muster up the strength to confront my abuser years later,” she said.

“Sitting across the table from him having this conversation, took an enormous amount of courage and was a huge step in my recovery, even if I didn’t get the apology or outcome I was hoping for.”

Also with the encouragement of Hadassah, Jenny decided to have bariatric (weight-loss) surgery and kept her promise even after Hadassah passed away from cancer in 2010, before the surgery.

“In total, I lost about 95 kg after the surgery. I’d put on the weight to hide from the world and losing it made me more visible and vulnerable, which was difficult initially, but my confidence grew.

“It took a lot of self-worth and patience with myself to be able to be okay with things and stop blaming myself. I still have wobblies; we’re never completely cured, but with every layer of healing, we get better.”

Now excited to try new things, Jenny did a course about spreading love and joy to children in hospitals.

“This work took my healing to a whole new level – when you give, you’re receiving. I plan to continue healing and transforming on deeper levels.”

Therapist Sue Hickey discussed the impact of abuse and how to protect your children. “One of the reasons that sexual abuse remains a problem, is that we struggle to talk about it,” she said.

“Let’s start having the conversation now. To protect our children, we need to teach them that sex needs to be part of a meaningful, committed relationship. Yet, we live in a society where sex is becoming recreational, so the value system we give them is constantly challenged by their peers, the media and all they can stumble into on the Internet.”

Sue provided the following key tips for parents on dealing with sexual abuse:

–     Understand that our children cannot protect themselves from sexual abuse. When you educate your children about what to do and what not to do, never imply that they are responsible should something happen. They are NEVER, EVER responsible for being abused. We need to tell them that.

–     Children have to go to someone – it’s difficult for them to speak up as we see. They know it will cause problems. They’re afraid they’ve done something wrong. Be the kind of person that a child would come to. They need to know they come to us without us freaking out or blaming them.

–     When an adult that’s not related or very close to you, finds your kid amazing, start worrying. It’s for you to scrutinise and, if necessary, stop relationships that you think are suspicious. “Say, I don’t care if I was wrong, I care that I paid attention and I tried,” Trust your gut.

–     When children are being groomed by sexual predators, they’re told to keep silent. “We don’t want to bring up children that can’t keep confidences, so teach children to be discerning about what secrets you keep and what secrets you don’t. If your child’s unsure about the difference, tell them: “A secret is never a secret from me, just tell me and I’ll keep it for you.”

–     Teach your children caution and good judgement.

Hickey then interacted with the audience, who spoke of the conflict that comes with lashon hara and situations of abuse and exposing abusers. They also discussed what they termed the “propensity to turn against the victims in religious community”.

The audience agreed that the community should be supportive of the “victim” and not of how it looks to others, and abusers need to be exposed to protect future victims.

Asked when and how to educate children about the dangers of abuse, Tova said: “From the minute your children can start talking, you can talk to them.

“”Teach them about the beauty and sacredness of the body, give them boundaries about acceptable behaviour. Keep the conversation going.”