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Siblings of Incest Survivors
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Dylan Farrow has come forward with details about her sexual abuse at the hands of her father Woody Allen. Her brother Ronan, has supported her. And now her brother Moses Farrow has come forward to defend Woody, accusing his mother Mia of “poisoning” the family against her former partner. Her motive, of course, is revenge against Woody--for seducing and marrying one of Mia’s daughters.
High drama, but also predictable. In cases of incest, it is very common for one or more siblings to refute the victim’s accusations and come to the defense of the perpetrator. This happened in the Sandusky case. One of his sons accused his father of abuse, but the other sons stood by their father. The same thing happened with Roseanne Barr. Her sister contradicted Roseanne’s version of the abuse in the family.
And it happened in my own family. My brother’s position was that I had “falsely accused an innocent old man.” How is that siblings can have such wildly different experiences within the same family? There could be several possible reasons:
Often the victim occupies a scapegoat role in the family, and discrediting and trashing him or her is part of the prevailing family dynamic. The abuser could be so powerful or terrifying that other siblings, for their own reasons, may have chosen to side with him or her… and sometimes that “choice” is made for them on a subconscious level, with the subconscious mind editing out of memories. And then, there are the perks and incentives. Inheritance is always a big one, but there can be other benefits in protecting a perpetrator. Often accusing a family member will result in losing one’s welcome with the perpetrator’s side of the family, or even with the entire family. No more invitations to Thanksgiving, graduations, holiday dinners. If one is still being supported by family, it might mean no more free rent, no more free tuition, and so on. When the perpetrator is a famous celebrity, the benefits can be substantial.
And it happened in my own family. My brother’s position was that I had “falsely accused an innocent old man.” How is that siblings can have such wildly different experiences within the same family? There could be several possible reasons:
Often the victim occupies a scapegoat role in the family, and discrediting and trashing him or her is part of the prevailing family dynamic. The abuser could be so powerful or terrifying that other siblings, for their own reasons, may have chosen to side with him or her… and sometimes that “choice” is made for them on a subconscious level, with the subconscious mind editing out of memories. And then, there are the perks and incentives. Inheritance is always a big one, but there can be other benefits in protecting a perpetrator. Often accusing a family member will result in losing one’s welcome with the perpetrator’s side of the family, or even with the entire family. No more invitations to Thanksgiving, graduations, holiday dinners. If one is still being supported by family, it might mean no more free rent, no more free tuition, and so on. When the perpetrator is a famous celebrity, the benefits can be substantial.
But there can be something else going on when siblings deny abuse. It’s called dissociation. In psychiatry, this is defined as “the separation of normally related mental processes, resulting in one group [of processes] functioning independently from the rest, leading in extreme cases to disorders such as multiple personality.”
Let’s look at this.
Often a perpetrator will only perpetrate when they are in an altered state from drug or alcohol use. Under the influence, they can be described as “changing personalities,” “acting like a different person.” And sometimes, with sexual abuse, this can happen without substances. Sexual compulsions and addictions operate apart from the will. They seem to have a mind of their own. Ask any addict. This is what Step One of the Twelve Steps is all about: “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Folks in recovery will be quick to add that being “powerless over alcohol” does not mean they are helpless or non-accountable. The addict can reach out, get a sponsor, attend 12-step meetings. Addicts, even ones far-gone in addiction, can and do become clean and sober and stay that way. They can make amends. But first they have to identify the disease as a dissociated state that can take over their thinking. Recovery strategizes around the dissociated process of addiction, which is why it works. It does not rely on will power.
Let’s look at this.
Often a perpetrator will only perpetrate when they are in an altered state from drug or alcohol use. Under the influence, they can be described as “changing personalities,” “acting like a different person.” And sometimes, with sexual abuse, this can happen without substances. Sexual compulsions and addictions operate apart from the will. They seem to have a mind of their own. Ask any addict. This is what Step One of the Twelve Steps is all about: “Admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Folks in recovery will be quick to add that being “powerless over alcohol” does not mean they are helpless or non-accountable. The addict can reach out, get a sponsor, attend 12-step meetings. Addicts, even ones far-gone in addiction, can and do become clean and sober and stay that way. They can make amends. But first they have to identify the disease as a dissociated state that can take over their thinking. Recovery strategizes around the dissociated process of addiction, which is why it works. It does not rely on will power.
Dissociation can be very confusing, and especially for children. Often the distance between “drunk daddy” and “sober daddy,” or between “perpetrating mommy” and “non-perpetrating mommy” can be so great that it is impossible for a child to hold the concepts of both simultaneously in the mind. They have to choose. The internal split of the perpetrator becomes an external fault line in the family. The child does what the perpetrator does: He or she edits out the inconsistencies, splitting off the affect and the narratives that are taboo. Sometimes the victims themselves can experience this before retrieval of memories. Incest survivor Marilyn Van Derbur writes about the “daytime daddy” and the “nighttime daddy,” and how there was no connection between them in her mind. As a child, she split off all her memories of “nighttime daddy,” and she did not recover these until she was an adult.
Trauma is trauma because it involves something that the mind cannot accept, and yet something that the mind must accept. Incest is traumatic. It cannot have happened, and yet it did. One cannot bear to think about it, and yet one must find a way to think about it. The family cannot assimilate it, and yet they must. Fissures open up. Lines are drawn. Alliances form. Something or someone is ejected. Someone is a liar, someone has ulterior motives. The survivor recants or she is cast out, discredited, trashed. Or else the perpetrator is rejected, demonized, banished, all traces exorcized.
Trauma is trauma because it involves something that the mind cannot accept, and yet something that the mind must accept. Incest is traumatic. It cannot have happened, and yet it did. One cannot bear to think about it, and yet one must find a way to think about it. The family cannot assimilate it, and yet they must. Fissures open up. Lines are drawn. Alliances form. Something or someone is ejected. Someone is a liar, someone has ulterior motives. The survivor recants or she is cast out, discredited, trashed. Or else the perpetrator is rejected, demonized, banished, all traces exorcized.
My perpetrator had dissociative disorders. He could be in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight with my mother, with screaming and hitting… but if the doorbell rang, he would cross to the door, open it—cool as a cucumber—and make a little joke about his torn shirt and the missus. He could turn like that on a dime. As his mental illness progressed, he began to lose his boundaries among his colleagues. One attorney told me how she was in the middle of negotiating a divorce settlement. She was representing one partner, and my father was representing the other. Suddenly, in the middle of the negotiating, he stood up and began to preach how it was the will of God for the couple to reconcile. He delivered a sermon as if it was from the mouth of God. This from the man who abused his daughter!
Sometimes, when a powerful figure, like a father, dissociates, those around can also spontaneously dissociate on cue. That enables them to split off and possibly forget entire episodes of incongruent behavior. This kind of dissociation is a self-protective strategy, especially when the family is still a survival unit, as it is for a child.
Sometimes, when a powerful figure, like a father, dissociates, those around can also spontaneously dissociate on cue. That enables them to split off and possibly forget entire episodes of incongruent behavior. This kind of dissociation is a self-protective strategy, especially when the family is still a survival unit, as it is for a child.
How did the perpetrator learn to dissociate? Often perpetrators were victims themselves. They failed to reconcile the fission in their early psyches, which enabled a dissociated reality to grow in themselves. My father was sexually abused by his mother, who slept with him until he was twelve. He was sexually compulsive by the time he was a teenager… and yet, he tried to gain admission to seminary school. He wanted to be a minister! How did he reconcile his out-of-control sexuality with a call to the ministry?
What I noticed was that my father could do something that the whole family witnessed, like cutting through the cord of an electric hedge-trimmer, and then insist that he had not done it. I mean, really insist. I thought, “Well, he’s either the world’s best actor or else he has the world’s worst memory.” I came to believe that the truth was neither. He was dissociating. He held himself to such high standards of godlike perfectionism, that when he messed up, he simply edited reality. He could “make it so” whenever he wanted. Possibly it was these impossibly high standards that played a part in the creation of a criminal and non-accountable dissociated state.
What I noticed was that my father could do something that the whole family witnessed, like cutting through the cord of an electric hedge-trimmer, and then insist that he had not done it. I mean, really insist. I thought, “Well, he’s either the world’s best actor or else he has the world’s worst memory.” I came to believe that the truth was neither. He was dissociating. He held himself to such high standards of godlike perfectionism, that when he messed up, he simply edited reality. He could “make it so” whenever he wanted. Possibly it was these impossibly high standards that played a part in the creation of a criminal and non-accountable dissociated state.
My father eventually became a criminal attorney, which was an ideal profession for a man with an aptitude for altering his reality. He could argue with remarkable persuasion the innocence of the most blatant offender, because in his mind, he had “made it so.”
I do not believe that my father assimilated his perpetrations. I believe that he stored those memories in the same file with the bisected hedge-trimmer cord: “Things That I Know I Could Not Possibly Have Done.”
Getting back to the question of siblings…
When these conflicting sibling narratives occur, they do not necessarily mean that the perpetration never happened. In fact, they can bear powerful witness to a dissociated truth about the family. Is someone lying? “Lying” is a poor choice of words for what happens in dissociation. Truth is being compartmentalized, split off, banished… but that is different from intentional lying. These pieces of truth, held by different family members, become polarized, as do the holders of them. Demon-monster or long-suffering, wrongfully accused innocent? Ungrateful, vengeful child or courageous truth-teller? Loyal sibling defending an innocent parent or cowardly betrayer hoping to inherit?
I do not believe that my father assimilated his perpetrations. I believe that he stored those memories in the same file with the bisected hedge-trimmer cord: “Things That I Know I Could Not Possibly Have Done.”
Getting back to the question of siblings…
When these conflicting sibling narratives occur, they do not necessarily mean that the perpetration never happened. In fact, they can bear powerful witness to a dissociated truth about the family. Is someone lying? “Lying” is a poor choice of words for what happens in dissociation. Truth is being compartmentalized, split off, banished… but that is different from intentional lying. These pieces of truth, held by different family members, become polarized, as do the holders of them. Demon-monster or long-suffering, wrongfully accused innocent? Ungrateful, vengeful child or courageous truth-teller? Loyal sibling defending an innocent parent or cowardly betrayer hoping to inherit?
One of the touchstones of late stage recovery is the ability to move away from black-and-white thinking, to be able to hold in mind contradictory truths. What would this look like in the case of incest?
One might remember the times when a perpetrator was caring and generous, and at the same time hold the memories of their horrific perpetration and betrayal. One might acknowledge the skill or artistry in the perpetrator’s professional life, and still retain the anger for their sexual predation. Holding contradictory truths, one must still make choices around behaviors. And those behaviors will reflect values and have moral consequences.
In my own experience, I was less empowered when I was demonizing the perpetrator. I continue to confront and I still hold him accountable, but today I have a deeper understanding of him as person made up of many parts, with his own history of victimization, and suffering from a devastating form of mental illness. This perspective expands my opportunities for advocacy and activism, and it also enables me to take a more careful inventory of the ways in which I have been affected by the perpetration.
Today, I can read the articles by Dylan and by Moses Farrow, and I can see how they both tell the same story, a story of incest.
One might remember the times when a perpetrator was caring and generous, and at the same time hold the memories of their horrific perpetration and betrayal. One might acknowledge the skill or artistry in the perpetrator’s professional life, and still retain the anger for their sexual predation. Holding contradictory truths, one must still make choices around behaviors. And those behaviors will reflect values and have moral consequences.
In my own experience, I was less empowered when I was demonizing the perpetrator. I continue to confront and I still hold him accountable, but today I have a deeper understanding of him as person made up of many parts, with his own history of victimization, and suffering from a devastating form of mental illness. This perspective expands my opportunities for advocacy and activism, and it also enables me to take a more careful inventory of the ways in which I have been affected by the perpetration.
Today, I can read the articles by Dylan and by Moses Farrow, and I can see how they both tell the same story, a story of incest.
I spent many agonizing years searching for something - anything - to make them less accountable for their own behavior. It was only when I stopped looking for what wasn't there that I could begin to heal. The thought process that has been expressed here (and quite brilliantly, I might add) was a place I needed to be before I was able to reach a better place of Radical Acceptance. I am now free from the need to understand my tormentors or the choices they made. People without moral guidelines are not explainable in terms of the average human experience.
Of course, everyone has different circumstances and must choose paths appropriate for them to follow. I wish peace to every single abuse Survivor, however it is found. And if revenge (without personal risk) is a shallow form of justice, then at the very least that's a well-deserved option (along with others) which the victimized are entitled to have.
I see nothing dissociative about your father's sudden change from a "violent abuser" to a "cool as a cucumber" personna when the doorbell rang. Perhaps it's easier to believe that he was under the influence of a dissociative state... but that would possibly make you the person in denial. If your father was acutely aware that what he was doing was socially unacceptable, of course he would have wished to avoid consequences for his actions. That awareness would mean he was in a very cognitive state of consciousness. It would mean in fact, that he was very well rehearsed in appropriate behavior when at risk of exposure. That reaction by its very description would take dissociation off the table. It is amazingly easy for an experienced, non-dissociating narcissist/sociopath to turn on a dime.
I also find your idea of "compartmentalization" an inappropriate explanation for the examples you have given. We all compartmentalize to some degree (ask any ER doctor). But the sudden compartmentalization as you describe requires a dissociative process on the farthest end of the dissociation spectrum called Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID.
This disorder is rarely controlled on command; more often than not it is a very "inconvenient" and disabling condition. Aside from criminals faking the disorder to avoid prosecution, people who truly have this condition are unlikely to "use" it to avoid punishment. I find your labels of both dissociative disorders and mental Illnesses to be without scientific merit based on your narrative.
With my most personal respect to you Ms. Gage, I feel it would be more valuable for your readers to benefit from your opinions, rather than to refer to your medical diagnoses. Believe it or not (despite my criticisms :) I very much value your thoughts.