Here we are at my favorite stage in REPAIR. Insight is one of those under-rated but brilliant words. It means (for those who aren’t regular readers of Webster), the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively. This quality brings peace, promotes happiness and acceptance, qualities we have all sought but never thought never to obtain.
One of the questions that plague those of us who were sexually abused is WHY? Even the explanations of a therapist, a clinical psychologist or anyone who has a multiple of degrees after their name might not be able to truly answer this question. That is because you have to arrive at it yourself. In moving through the four previous stages of REPAIR you are slowly making your way across the Bridge of Recovery. Each step builds on the last. First, you needed to arrive at the truth. You did that with Recognition. Then you had to make a decision regarding the best way to cross that bridge. What tools did you need? What groups should you belong to? Do you really need a therapist? The chapter on Entry helped you to answer all of these questions and more. Process gave you tools that encouraged you to move, one step at a time, through all of the issues you had, unanswered questions that plagued you, ways to make you stronger and believe in yourself as you repaired your battered ego and so on.
Then we came to awareness, that light bulb that went on in your head. You mean it wasn’t my fault? It was a set-up? I was part of a family system that almost guaranteed abuse? Wow! Now what do you do with all of this awareness? This is where Insight comes in. You begin to discern the whole picture as you have been assembling the pieces to the puzzle your life has been. Here you understand deeply and fully the why of your child sexual abuse. You will be doing exercises designed to help you not only feel better about yourself, but see clearly what you did and did not receive as a child. You will be given tools to help you through some of the major problems a survivor of child sexual abuse has in their life. You are now able to begin detaching from the pain. You can view it from a distance, as if you were reading about someone else, seeing an illustration of all of the abuse and results of it but it no longer has any power to harm you. Where once was a bleeding wound, now is only a faint scar.
All that remains is to find out about the last “R” in REPAIR.
