posted May 31, 2015 05:02 AM            

Nothing in what happened to you and none of what you experience post-traumatically is your fault. A child is never responsible for the actions of adults.

Please keep this message with you at all times and seek help.

First, I would like to post a few (astrology unrelated) informative articles for children, parents and everyone else, for I believe information is better than the lack of it. Feel free to discuss the astrology of abusive relationships between children and adults.

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I seem to have loved you in numberless forms...

LeeLoo's Esotericorner

posted May 31, 2015 05:03 AM            

© 2009 Pandora's Project
By: Kate

Survivors of child sexual abuse often find it difficult to place the blame for their abuse where it really lies – on the shoulders of the perpetrator/s. The perpetrator may twist aspects of the abuse around so that the child is made to feel at fault or somehow complicit in the abuse, for example by telling the child that the abuse is their fault, by masking the abuse as “punishment”, engaging them in the abuse, by entwining the abuse together with expressions of love and affection or perhaps by manipulating the child to initiate incidents of abuse. A child cannot truly understand the power-play and the control that the perpetrator has in these situations and will often take that self-blame and internalise it. As an adult survivor, this internalisation of self-blame and responsibility for the abuse can lead to feelings of worthlessness, guilt, depression, self-hatred, inability to self-care and risky behaviours, among many others. Understanding the many ways in which an abuser targets their victim and “grooms” them for the sexual abuse can be one step towards placing the blame where it belongs and releasing it from the shoulders of the survivor.

For survivors who recovered/repressed their memories of sexual abuse, the memories can feel surreal, impossible, “crazy”. On a personal note, I was sexually abused as a child but through an incredible amount of denial managed to push it to the side and not think about it until I was older – when those memories did return though I thought I was crazy – my abuse took place in a kindergarten and I could not comprehend how people who devoted their days to looking after children could ever sexually abuse them. I thought I was making up these memories and didn't know what to believe – until I learned more about abusers and the grooming process and found out that actually many sexual abusers will place themselves in occupations where they have regular access to children. It was validating and reassuring to understand more about the tactics of an abuser.

The information below is especially relevant in cases where the abuser is a care-giver or has some form of a relationship with the child and is courtesy of the New South Wales Pre-trial Diversion of Offenders Program (1994).

Identification and Targeting

Offenders have a special ability to identify and exploit children's vulnerabilities. For example, younger children are especially vulnerable as they do not have the language or knowledge to understand or tell others what is happening. Children who rely on the offender for care, love, affection or other things will also be vulnerable to the demands of the abuser.

Recruitment

The offender uses a range of strategies to engage the child in a relationship where the abuse can happen and to desensitise the child to abusive behaviour.

Trust/Favouritism
They will take deliberate steps to establish a relationship of trust, spending time with the child, listening to them, treating them as “special”, or perhaps giving them compliments/presents/favours.

Isolation/Secrecy
The offender will isolate the child from their siblings and from the non-offending parent. The favouritism shown to the victim often promotes alienation from siblings. The offender may use the child as a “confidante”, sharing special secrets. Statements like “Mum wouldn't understand how special we are together”, “ours is a special love that others wouldn't understand” contribute to a climate of secrecy and alienate the child from the non-offending parent.

Desensitisation
A process of desensitisation is used to test the child's resistance and engage them in the abuse. Offenders use “normal” situations and exploit these to abuse. For example they may use touching as a game or introduce sexual touching as “accidental”. They are likely to blur the boundaries of ordinary affection so the child confuses this with the abuse. This often occurs around the child's normal bathing, dressing and bedroom routines. They offender may engage the child in their own bathroom behaviour or use talk about sex and sexual jokes to blur boundaries about it.

Throughout the process of engaging the child in the abuse the offender is evaluating whether the child has been “groomed” sufficiently, i.e. whether they show interest, will not protest, will keep the secret.

Maintenance

Perpetrators use careful planning, scheming and execution of strategies to groom the child to participate in sexual activities. There is a progression of acts over time and a checking of risks. The perpetrator will gain the compliance of the victim by:

- Assuring the child of the “rightness” of what they are doing, e.g. through statements such as “this is a way we can show we love each other”, “I am teaching you”, “it's not doing any harm”.
- Telling the child the acts will not hurt them.
- Conveying the negative consequences of non-compliance or disclosure, e.g. through threats, conveying the illusion that the child is “free” to choose, that he/she has consented and that they are in a “relationship”
- Using bribes, threats, punishment

While we all face similar struggles in the aftermath, it must be remembered that no two stories are the same and it is impossible to generalise the grooming tactics of perpetrators. It can help when working through guilt and self-blame as a survivor however to have some understanding of the stereotypical modus operandi of an abuser and how as a child you were the victim of a targeted and planned attack. What happened was not your fault and despite the messages you may have been given as a child and the words that were said to you it is important to remember one thing:

You are not to blame – no child can ever hold responsibility for their own sexual abuse nor the actions of an adult.

"Understanding brings control of our own experiences"
- Bonewitz "

posted May 31, 2015 05:05 AM            

"Grooming Children for Sexual Molestation

By Gregory M. Weber

You're a thief—a con artist. You recently met an elderly widow with a good–sized bank account fueled by pension and dividend checks. In sharp contrast, your own financial engine is running on fumes. You decide to take her money.

So you befriend the lady. You run small errands for her. You buy her gifts. You listen to her stories and you comfort her when she feels lonely. You put your arm around her and tell her you understand her problems. You spend time with her each day. You tell her she's special. You gain her trust. Her natural suspicion disappears.

Only then does the conversation shift to money. You tell her about a tremendous investment opportunity. You offer her a chance to share in this special event. If she's curious, you play on that curiosity. You answer her questions and downplay her fears.

And your work pays off. She trusts you. She signs the check.

Three minutes after her bank opens, you're in the wind, cash in hand and ready to target your next victim.

But what if you're a child molester—a predator? What if the object of your desire isn't the widow's bank account, but her six–year–old grandson? What steps will you take to get what you want?

Not much will change. A predator will identify and engage his victim. He'll gain the child's trust, break down his defenses, and manipulate him into performing or permitting the desired sex act. If necessary, the predator will gain access to the child by employing the same techniques with the child's parent or adult caretaker.

The process is called grooming. It increases the predator's access to his victim and decreases the likelihood of discovery.

Anna C. Salter is a respected psychologist. She is an expert in the field of child sexual maltreatment, and she spells it out:

"The establishment (and eventual betrayal) of affection and trust occupies a central role in the child molester's interactions with children....The grooming process often seems similar from offender to offender, largely because it takes little to discover that emotional seduction is the most effective way to manipulate children."

These men are convicted child molesters. They, too, are experts in the field of child maltreatment, and they also spell it out:

"[P]arents are so naive—they're worried about strangers and should be worried about their brother–in–law. They just don't realize how devious we can be. I used to abuse children in the same room with their parents and they couldn't see it or didn't seem to know it was happening."

"I was disabled and spent months grooming the parents, so they would tell their children to take me out and help me. No one thought that disabled people could be abusers."

"[P]arents are partly to blame if they don't tell their children about [sexual matters]—I used it to my advantage by teaching the child myself."

"[P]arents shouldn't be embarrassed to talk about things like this—it's harder to abuse or trick a child who knows what you're up to."

Here's what the predators are up to.

Grooming is a process. It begins when the predator chooses a target area. He may visit places where children are likely to go: schools, shopping malls, playgrounds, parks, and the like. He may work or volunteer at businesses that cater to children. Other predators strike up relationships with adults who have children in the home—single parent families make particularly good targets.

Victim selection and recruitment are next. There is no prototypical victim of child sexual abuse. Any child may be victimized. Not surprisingly, predators often target children with obvious vulnerabilities. A child who feels unloved and unpopular will soak up adult attention like a sponge. Children with family problems, who spend time alone and unsupervised, who lack confidence and self–esteem, and who are isolated from their peers are all likely targets.

Predators engage or "recruit" their victims in different ways. Many use a combination of forced teaming and charm. They may offer to play games, give rides, or buy treats and gifts as tokens of friendship. They may offer drugs or alcohol to older children or teenagers. And they almost always offer a sympathetic, understanding ear. Your parents don't understand or respect you? I do. Other kids make fun of you? I know what that's like—it was the same way for me when I was your age. They don't trust you at home? Boy, I know what that's like—your parents never really want you to grow up. But I trust you. I respect you. I care for you more than anybody else. And I love you. I'm here for you.

Successful predators find and fill voids in a child's life.

A predator will usually introduce secrecy at some point during the grooming process. Initially, secrecy binds the victim to the predator: "Here's some candy. But don't tell your friends because they'll be jealous, and don't tell your mother because she won't like you eating between meals." Later on, secrecy joins hands with threats: "If you tell your mother what happened, she'll hate you. It'll kill her. Or I'll kill her. Or I'll kill you."

The forging of an emotional bond through grooming leads to physical contact. Predators use the grooming process to break down a child's defenses and increase the child's acceptance of touch. The first physical contact between predator and victim is often nonsexual touching designed to identify limits: an "accidental" touch, an arm around the shoulder, a brushing of hair. Nonsexual touching desensitizes the child. It breaks down inhibitions and leads to more overt sexual touching—the predator's ultimate goal.

The best way to recognize grooming behavior is to pay attention to your child and the people in your child's life. Gavin de Becker sensibly reminds us that "[c]hildren require the protection of adults, usually from adults. Their fear of people is not yet developed, their intuition not yet loaded with enough information and experience to keep them from harm." There are many demands placed upon our time, but nothing—nothing—is more important than the welfare of our children. When we blindly surrender responsibility for them to others without question, we invite trouble. Parents should know their child's teachers, coaches, day care providers, youth group leaders, and other significant adults in their lives. Make unannounced visits. Ask questions. Stay involved.

And please—talk to your children. Teach them to recognize grooming behavior. Teach them to be wary of any physical contact initiated by an adult. And teach them to trust you with their problems and their pain. The safest child is the child who knows he can bring his problems and concerns to parents and adult caregivers without reproach or retaliation."

posted May 31, 2015 05:08 AM            

You can find good articles and research here, in the References section:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_grooming

posted May 31, 2015 05:09 AM            

Bonding is a biological and emotional process that makes people more important to each other over time. Unlike love, trust, or attraction, bonding is not something that can be lost. It is cumulative and only gets greater, never smaller. Bonding grows with spending time together, living together, eating together, making love together, having children together, and being together during stress or difficulty. Bad times bond people as strongly as good times, perhaps more so.

Bonding is in part why it is harder to leave an abusive relationship the longer it continues. Bonding makes it hard to enforce boundaries, because it is much harder to keep away from people to whom we have bonded. In leaving a long relationship, it is not always useful to judge the correctness of the decision by how hard it is, because it will always be hard.

Moreover, experiencing together extreme situations and extreme feelings tends to bond people in a special way.. Trauma bonding, a term developed by Patrick Carnes, is the misuse of fear, excitement, sexual feelings, and sexual physiology to entangle another person. Many primary aggressors tend toward extreme behavior and risk taking, and trauma bonding is a factor in their relationships.

Strangely, growing up in an unsafe home makes later unsafe situations have more holding power. This has a biological basis beyond any cognitive learning. It is trauma in one's history that makes for trauma bonding. Because trauma (and developmental trauma or early relational trauma is epidemic) cause numbing around many aspects of intimacy, traumatized people often respond positively to a dangerous person or situation because it makes them feel. It is neither rational nor irrational. If survivors can come to see that part of the attraction is, while very unwanted, a natural process, they may be able to understand those feelings and manage the situation more intentionally.

An excellent book on the effects of trauma (and repair) is The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk MD

Intense relationships also tend to hijack all of a survivor's relating capacity. It is like a state of being burnt out. First, while it is very easy to become attached to a very chaotic and inconsistent person, it is simply not possible to form a consistent internal object representation (feeling memory) about them. When separated from the intense partner, the urge to make contact is usually intense because it is a stable feeling memory (or internal object) that makes separation from an important other person tolerable in any circumstance.

Second. the survivor can come to find that it can be almost impossible to relate to anyone, even family or old friends, except superficially. There is a biological craving for intensity that no normal relationship will satisfy. This provides a feeling of being totally alone, and totally empty. At first, only going back to the primary aggressor can overcome it. It would be normal in this state to believe that something is horribly wrong with leaving (even if it seems equally true that something is horribly wrong with staying. If it can be understood that abstinence from unnatural intensity will eventually restore normal relating capacity, the period of distress can be better endured."

http://www.abuseandrelationships.org/Content/Survivors/trauma_bonding.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_bonding

posted May 31, 2015 05:14 AM            

Elizabeth Smart's chart is discussed by Mary Plumb in The Mountain Astrologer;

posted May 31, 2015 05:16 AM            

Pluto does conjunct my IC and squares the ruler (in 12h) of my IC.

For a very long time I would not talk about my abuse since I have been told over and over that all is my fault -> venus, the ruler of my IC, sits in my 12 h.

posted May 31, 2015 06:06 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Enneline:
I was an abused child.

Pluto does conjunct my IC and squares the ruler (in 12h) of my IC.

For a very long time I would not talk about my abuse since I have been told over and over that all is my fault -> venus, the ruler of my IC, sits in my 12 h.

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posted May 31, 2015 06:19 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LeeLoo2014:
They say Pluto on IC is emblematic for difficult/potentially power abuse in childhood or experiencing lots of trauma and tragedy or lots of changes making you feel powerless, when you are a child. The ruler in the 12th shows this was something hidden and unlawful and even the fact that you couldn't express it, you weren't allowed to express it

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But pluto trines my mars in 11h. Shouldn't I have received help of my friends?

posted May 31, 2015 06:22 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Enneline:
But pluto trines my mars in 11h. Shouldn't I have received help of my friends?

Mars is opposite my neptune. I heard this is one true indicator for violence

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posted May 31, 2015 06:36 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LeeLoo2014:
Did you receive some kind of help later on, especially from men or a man, during the healing process? Trines tend to act slower, they take more time.

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posted May 31, 2015 07:55 AM            

What is really, really scary in Psych is for people who are in denial about themselves try to "help others"?

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posted May 31, 2015 08:43 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by geminigal2805:
Enneline, How do you handle Pluto on your IC?I have Saturn on IC. Pluto is also close to IC in the fourth house.
My husband's Pluto sits on my IC. But he has never abused me. Now Im being an ungrateful woman. He is great to me.

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Synastry would be different than the natal imo.

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posted May 31, 2015 09:00 AM            

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posted May 31, 2015 09:09 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
In the natal, Pluto conj the IC is not good at all. It shows a very hard home. In synastry, Pluto can bring good power to the places it touches!

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posted May 31, 2015 05:58 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Ami Anne:
In the natal, Pluto conj the IC is not good at all. It shows a very hard home. In synastry, Pluto can bring good power to the places it touches!

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I agree with Ami, his Pluto can also empower you there, and even have a healing effect on early years 4th house matters.

posted May 31, 2015 06:00 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Enneline:
yes, from my mentor.

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posted May 31, 2015 08:21 PM            

Not keep the wound open and rub salt in it.

posted May 31, 2015 08:35 PM            

Who did that? Please explain yourself.

What exactly is going on here?

Are you suggesting no abuse threads are allowed on this forum, because one thread got closed? despite the many people who seem to need or may need to discuss these things?

Did you read the persistent requests of the person you mention on various other threads (some not about her or not hers) not to mention her name in relation to this topic? You don't respect that, but you dare to post this here?

Are you making the topic of abuse about one person now?

This is outrageous!

posted May 31, 2015 08:38 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
I think it's clear that many people here are uncomfortable with the recent discussions, and we also think it's reckless to tell people they were abused on the basis of their charts alone, and we would like to CLOSE THAT WOUND. Randall explicitly said as much when he locked the other thread.

Not keep the wound open and rub salt in it.

I'm cringing for Voix's sake.

LeeLoo, you've never done me any wrong. But PLEASE let this topic die.

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posted May 31, 2015 08:46 PM            

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posted May 31, 2015 08:51 PM            

Its purpose is certified information and support for abuse victims and prevention. There is no healing of wounds without information!

posted May 31, 2015 08:54 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LeeLoo2014:
Faith, are you for real? You seemed like a reasonable person to me until now. I can't believe your post. It suggests this topic cannot be discussed anymore? Do you realize the message you are sending?

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This topic is RAW right now for reasons that you are fully aware of.

I send no message except have some sensitivity.

For you to keep educating about abuse, you keep harping on the underlying message of "because some people need to be educated."

For you to keep a door open for people to come in STILL making sly remarks about "some people" when we know full well who they are probably alluding to, considering the present social context, is reckless.

For you to ABUSE your authority in this forum, to keep up an incendiary topic that by many accounts is too painful to touch, is abusing your authority.

And I do NOT condone the practice of using astrology to claim omniscience about others' childhoods and plant ideas in their head about abuse.

Yes I'm for real. I have been watching all this from the sidelines because it makes me SO upset, I didn't even want to go there.