Post incest syndrome | Gentle Ministries

Do You Find Yourself On This List?
Could Incest Have Happened to You?

“POST-INCEST SYNDROME” IN WOMEN”:
THE INCEST SURVIVORS’ AFTEREFFECTS CHECKLIST

By E. Sue Blume, C.S.W., Diplomate in Clinical Social Work

INCEST is such a traumatic violation that its victims often forget that it even occurred. But the emotional scares live on, confusing in their meaninglessness. Ongoing problems with relationships, sex, trust, touch addictions, paralyzing depression, and guilt can, when the cause is unknown, feel crazy and out of control. This checklist can be used as a guide to help adult survivors identify themselves and know that there are re al reasons for their unrelenting difficulties – that, in fact, the “problems” are actually desperate attempts to cope with impossible pain.

INCEST has traditionally been defines as sex and/or marriage between close relatives. But INCEST, the most common form of child sexual abuse, is, above all, child abuse – abuse of the child’s personal and sexual boundaries by the very person(s) entrusted with her care. And sexual violation can occur through the way a child is talked to or looked at, even when there is no touching at all. INCEST then is any use of a minor child to meet the sexual or sexual/emotional needs of one or more persons whose authority is derived through ongoing emotional bonding with that child (parents, step-parents, babysitter, sibling, mother’s boyfriend, teacher, priest, family doctor). Note that INCEST is an abuse of a power relationship, not a blood relationship: it is the violation of trust that damages the child.

INCEST is especially common in alcoholic families. On the alcoholic’s part this is due to damaged judgment, a need to control others (momentarily satisfied through playing out dominant/submissive gender roles), and inability to identify with other human beings (to care about the damage he does to others). Often the alcoholic does not remember the experience(s), or apply the same defenses that surround alcoholic drinking and other alcoholic behaviors, he denies, minimizes and projects blame. But these defenses are not exclusive to perpetrators who are alcoholic, and not all alcohol-related incest is attributed to the disease of alcoholism. Also, families where there is incest, like alcoholic families have denial systems, and both experience total confusion of boundaries and disregard for the legitimately dependent developing child. As you will see from this list, ACOAs and incest survivors generally share many other characteristics, along with other adults who endured such childhood trauma as battering, etc.

Do you find yourself on this list? If so, you could be a survivor of incest. However separate from people that might make you feel, you are not alone. There is help available, through self-help groups where survivors share their pain and strengths, and with therapists who have allowed them to break from traditional training and learn from survivors themselves what the experience is really about. Healing is possible; with help, you can break from self-blame, isolation and the entrapment of Post-Incest Syndrome.

This list contains several items which appeared originally in an unpublished article provided by New York Women Against Rape (NYWAR) in their rape counselor training, which are used with their permission. The rest have been developed through observation and interviews with survivors themselves. To all those who contributed to this fact sheet, thank you; and your generous sharing of your pain and experiences in a gift to all survivors.

Fear of being alone in the dark, of sleeping alone; night terrors (especially of pursuit, threat, entrapment)

Swallowing and gagging sensitivity; repugnance to water on face when bathing or swimming (suffocation feelings)

Alienation from body – not at home in own body; failure to heed signals of body to take care of it; poor body image; manipulating body size to avoid sexual attention

Gastrointestinal problems; GYN disorders (including spontaneous vaginal infections); headaches; arthritis or joint pain

Wearing a lot of clothing, even in summer; baggy clothes; failure to remove clothing even when appropriate to do so (while swimming, bathing, sleeping); extreme requirement for privacy when using the bathroom

Eating disorders, drug/alcohol abuse (or total abstinence); other addictions, compulsive behaviors

Skin carving, self-abuse (physical pain is manageable) (this is an addictive pattern*); self-destructiveness

Phobias

Need to be invisible, perfect or perfectly bad

Suicidal thoughts, attempts, obsession (including “passive suicide”)

Depression (sometimes paralyzing); seemingly baseless crying

Anger issues: inability to recognize, own or express anger; fear of actual or imagined rage; constant anger; intense hostility toward entire gender or ethnic group (“race”) of perpetrator
Splitting (depersonalization); going into shock, shutdown in crisis; stressful situation always in crisis; psychic numbing; physical pain or numbness associated with particular memory, emotion (e.g. anger) or situation (e.g. sex)

Rigid control of thought process; humorlessness or extreme solemnity

Childhood hiding, hanging on, cowering in corners (security-seeking behaviors); adult nervousness over being watched or surprised, feeling watched, startle response.

Trust issues: inability to trust (trust is not safe); to total trust; trusting indiscriminately

High risk taking (“daring the fates”); inability to take risks

Fear of losing control; control, power, territorial issues; obsessive/compulsive behaviors (attempts to control things that don’t matter, just to control something); power/sex confusion

Guilt/ shame/ low self-esteem/ feeling worthless/ high appreciation of small favors by others

Pattern of being a victim (victimizing oneself after being victimized by others), especially sexually; no sense of own power or right to set limits or say “no”; pattern of relationships with much older persons (onset in adolescence)

Feeling demand to “produce and be loved”; instinctively knowing and doing what the other person needs or wants’ relationships mean big trade-offs (“love” was taken, not given)

Abandonment issues

Blocking out some period of early years (especially 1-12), or a specific person or place

Feeling of carrying an awful secret; urge to tell/fear of its being revealed; certainty that no-one would listen. Being generally secretive. Feeling “marked” (the ‘scarlet letter”)

Feeling crazy; feeling different; feeling oneself to be unreal and everyone else to be real, or vice versa

Denial: no awareness at all; repression of memories; pretending; minimizing, (“it wasn’t that bad”); having dreams or memories (“maybe it’s my imagination”) (these are actually flashbacks, which is how recall begins); strong, deep “inappropriate” negative reactions to a person, place or event; “sensory flashes” (a light, a place, a physical feeling) without any sense of their meaning; remembering surroundings but not the event. Memory may start with the least threatening event or perpetrator. Actual details of abuse may never be fully remembered; however, much recovery is possible without complete recall. Your inner guide will release memories at the pace you can handle.

Sexual issues: sex f eels “dirty”; aversion to being touched, especially in a GYN exam; strong aversion to (or need for) particular sex acts; feeling betrayed by one’s body; trouble integrating sexuality and emotionality; confusion or overlapping of affection/ sex/ dominance/ aggression/ violence; having to pursue power in sexual arena which is actually sexual acting out (self-abuse, manipulation [esp. women]; abuse of others [esp. men]); compulsively “seductive”, or compulsively asexual; must be sexual aggressor, or cannot be; impersonal, “promiscuous”, sex with strangers concurrent with inability to have sex in intimate relationship (conflict between sex and caring); prostitute, stripper, “sex symbol” (Marilyn Monroe), porn actress; sexual “acting out” to meet anger or revenge needs; “sexaholism” (sexual addiction); avoidance, shutdown, crying after orgasm; all pursuit feel like violation; sexualizing of meaningful relationships; erotic response to abuse or anger, sexual fantasies of dominance/ real rape (results in guilt and confusion). NOTE: Homosexuality is not an “aftereffect”.

Pattern of ambivalent or intensely conflictual relationships (in true intimacy, issues are more likely to surface; in problem relationships, focus can be shifted from real issues)

Avoidance of mirrors (connected with invisibility, shame/self-esteem issues, distrust of perceived body image)

Desire to change one’s name (to disassociate from the perpetrator or to take control through self-labeling)

Limited tolerance for happiness; active withdrawal from/ reluctance to trust happiness (“ice = thin”)

Aversion to noise-making (including during sex, crying, laughing, or other body functions); verbal hyper vigilance (careful monitoring of one’s words); quiet-voiced, especially when needing to be heard.

Stealing (adults); stealing and fire starting (children)

Multiple personality (D.I.D., Dissociative Identity Disorder)

Note to therapists and others: Anyone, particularly those in need of psychotherapy, can manifest these symptoms, though some are unique to survivors of childhood sexual abuse. When they appear together, however, there is an increasing probability that incest occurred. Proceed gently! (Survivors and partners, be gentle with yourselves – and each other.)