Category: Health/Psychology

Carlos Santana is my brother. We are not related by blood, nor are we likely to ever meet, but he is my brother just the same. I discovered this while reading the March 16th, 2000 edition of "Rolling Stone," where he told writer Chris Heath about his painful experiences as a victim of a child molester. Since I am also a victim of childhood sexual abuse, we belong to a brotherhood, a strange kinship defined by a shared experience. With due respect to Santana, I would be just as happy if he was not my brother, if I were an orphan in the family of abuse victims. No child should have to suffer sexual abuse.

For fifteen years I have been treating couples and individuals with sexual issues and have been amazed by the sheer numbers of women reporting that they have little desire for sex in their long-term relationships. Patients tell me, “I really want to feel desire. I don’t know why it’s not working.” Clinics like Masters and Johnson estimate that fully one out of three women in long-term relationships are distressed by lack of desire.

Often, what’s holding women back from feeling sexual passion is old wounds from unfinished business of the past. The concept of unfinished business is popular in psychology and generally refers to emotional traumas and hurts, great and small, that are holding you back from being truly present in your life. We are all susceptible to hidden bedroom “partners” which stifle our responses just as if they were real life spectators that sabotage sexual desire. These hidden spectators are the voices of our parents, previous partners, abusers, and any other sex negative influences we have experienced in our lives.

Let us first consider the role of time in our lives, then let us consider that role in terms of mental illness. Buddhists and Hindus, among others, propose that time does not actually exist. The Western world, however, with its dependence on clocks and deadlines, scoffs at such a notion, relying upon sayings such as “Time is money” and “Time is of the essence.”

A healing of heart and mind can happen when we least expect it. Such a process has been happening for someone I care about very much, my husband. We both feel led to share his experience with others, in hopes that it will inspire you in your life and open you to healing on all levels. – S.C.

The Essence of Family

The rain storm came in fast and furious, wind whipping down the street, sound of the downpour resonating on the metal awning out front. It was a quiet Saturday, most folks not caring to go out on a day with such a threatening sky. I took the opportunity to get caught up on some things in the office. All of a sudden I heard a screaming outside, at my front door. Shocked, I quickly looked out to see what the trouble was, and saw a tiny, little girl, who was seeking shelter in the alcove of my front door, just howling away while the rain was pouring down. She was shaking, and wailing, and sobbing, gripping her little hands together, and looking out at the heavy rain pounding down the street. I started towards her from in my shop, and then I saw a strong set of arms scoop her up, and heard the voice of the mother saying, “It’s alright sweetheart, it’s OK. It’s just some rain.” She stopped crying immediately.

I enjoy writing about sexy games to play…all the light suggestions for sparking up a marriage that are fun to read about and even more fun to try, but fun and games aside, there is so much more involved in keeping a marriage hot. Good sex and games alone aren’t enough to make a happy marriage last.

As a child, I developed a love for gothic novels. Usually set in New England or old England, these stories would invariably involve a young woman who gets trapped, often by marriage, in a grand old Victorian house with a family hiding a dark secret. The secret was the plot’s MacGuffin, the thing which the heroine must possess in order to free herself from the past. With chilling accuracy, this resembles the situation for many victims of childhood sexual abuse. Since many don’t remember their abuse, they are very much like the typical gothic heroine and the key to their survival is in unlocking the secret that their families have been keeping from them.

I know, because I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Five years ago, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. I knew that I’d been abused, that my mother’s treatment of her children, with beatings and unprovoked violent tantrums, would today be considered criminal behavior. But never did the thought cross my mind that I’d been sexually victimized.

Then, several years ago, my therapist urged me to consider the possibility that I’’d been sexually abused at a very young age. He said that he’d suspected this for some time, and the imagery in a dream I was telling him seemed to prove it as far as he was concerned. Furthermore, he was convinced that the abuser had been my father, who’d died three years earlier.

Do you take in a big breath of air, notice how blue the sky is when you step out your door in the morning, how the birds are singing, filling your heart with joy? Do you notice and enjoy the cool morning breeze and how it feels on your skin? Do you celebrate the fact that you awoke to find your snoring husband annoying, or do you snuggle closer to him to feel his warm body and smell his morning man musk and take delight in it? Is sensuality reserved for under the covers after the lights are out?

Go barefoot, smell the salt air and let some joy into your life!