As a staunch advocate for complex-PTSD and having complex-PTSD, myself, I can tell you that I have endured every type of abuse, except overt sexual abuse. While hooray for small favors is in order, it does put me in a learning deficit. I’ve heard countless stories of child abuse over the years. Adult survivors have freely shared the verbal and physical abuse they endured at the hands of their own parents. However, if they survived sexual abuse, they have used single sentence statements. I have heard “They even farmed me out to pedophiles!” to “I’ve suffered every type of abuse, including sexual.” Up until recently, this has been the norm. Then an incest survivor shared her life story with me and it broke my heart.
I realized I needed an education on sexual abuse, so I reached out to Becky Schonscheck. She and her co-founders, Bridget Vega and Emma Pietrzak run the website: Stand By Survivors LLC. Together, they raise awareness on sex trafficking and they champion for sexually abused children. Before I share the valuable education that Becky gave me, let’s meet this amazing woman, what she does, and how she came to champion for survivors of sexual abuse.
The following terms referenced can be found in Trauma Glossary 1: Cluster B Personality Disorder; Pedophile
Trauma Glossary 3 (Section 3): Dopamine; Oxytocin
Introducing Becky Schonscheck
Jaena: For most people, including myself, we champion for abuse survivors because we’ve experienced it personally. However, this was not the case for you.
Becky: I personally have not been through abuse, thank God, but I feel it is vitally important to inform people on what could happen. The more we show the darkness in the world the more light takes over. These pedophiles and abusers live in the shadows…they don’t like people seeing or knowing what they do.
Jaena: I’m going to be honest with you and my readers. Years back, when I first heard of sex trafficking, my immediate thought was: Oh, those conspiracy theorists are at it again. Do they really expect us to believe so much evil is going on and our legal system would do nothing about it? I think what brought me around was that the evidence kept coming out. Then I remembered what happened in World War II. When rumors first leaked about concentration camps, everyone’s first response was to dismiss it. Because the idea of a large group of people being that evil, lacking that much humanity was unthinkable. I realized I was using the same logic to deny the facts.
Becky: I only learned about it (sex trafficking) two years ago, so you beat me. But I was called to it and found amazing people through it. I watched Fall of Cabal and Out of Shadows and I was hooked.
How Becky started championing for survivors of sexual abuse
Becky: I don’t think it happened overnight. I learned about trafficking and abuse from those movies, then found a survivor (Ally Carter) on Instagram. Her story was shocking and corroborated the movies I watched. December 2020 Ally asked everyone to stand out on the corner and show support against human trafficking. I messaged in the comments that I was in Phoenix, and I’d like to be part of anything that comes up. That started a group called Wake Up Phoenix. For about 6-7 months a group of about 5-10 of us went out every month in different locations around the valley to inform people about trafficking.
In January of 2021, a mutual friend introduced me to some people who were trying to start a group to help trafficking victims or victims of childhood sexual abuse. Within that group I met Bridget and Emma.
The three of us tried to help the survivor Ally, but it ended up that we were called names and kicked out of their group. It was then that we knew we needed to start an organization that would stand by all survivors, no matter their story. We’ve found that many survivors are triggered by each other and often call each other out. Our goal was to create a space where everyone was invited and accepted. So, we created Stand By Survivors, LLC. Our tagline is Everyone has a Story. We know that everyone is a survivor of something, and we can all support each other. So, our thought is that we are the platform, the story’s validity is between that person and God. We’re not responsible for a person telling their story maliciously or with ill intent…we just offer the platform.
That’s my background on how I became a champion.
Jaena: What led me to seek her help…
My incest survivor described a Cluster B disordered mother and a pedophile father. If what happened to her wasn’t heartbreaking enough, the way she narrated her story did me in. She had no problem saying that she had a bad mother, but when it came to her father, it was the reverse. This beautiful woman protected the memories of her father by destroying the image of her own child self. She was using phrases such as “I had a sexual relationship with my father.” And when she told me the first time it happened was at age three, she was quick to add, “But here’s the thing. I wanted it.”
Fortunately, I had been following Becky on Instagram for some time. I had learned the term “grooming” from her. It’s how pedophiles establish an emotional bond with their child victim. Once that bond is established, sexual exploitation is introduced. Out of this conditioning, the child develops their poor self-image and, until intervention, that self-image will direct their entire life.
As my incest survivor unfolded her life story, she confessed to chronic masturbation in her adolescent years, followed by drug abuse in her teens and adulthood. She flippantly described her adult years, allowing herself to be used by others, as if she was nothing more than an object. She experienced multiple life threatening situations and her fear of death was absent every time. I saw her father’s imprint on her everywhere. And yet, she, the victim of her own father from the tender age of three, believed that she was the one who brought out this side in him.
I was desperate for someone with deeper insights and Becky did not disappoint.
Becky educates me on sexual abuse
Becky: We all have what’s called attachment parenting. It’s extremely hard for children to see their parents as bad people. They will love them unconditionally even if they are doing bad things to them. Now it’s even more difficult when one parent is doing bad things but in a loving manner while the other parent is obviously cruel and unloving. The child is kind of stuck in a situation where they must have an attachment to one of them.
So, I’m sure she saw her mother as being awful, while her dad, although he sexually abused her, he probably did it in a very loving and attaching way. So, I’m sure that she was groomed from the beginning: “Oh, Daddy loves you, you’re daddy’s big girl, look what you can do, it’s our special time.” All those things along with it biologically feeling good. So that happens to a lot of people, they feel guilty because they enjoyed it or had a reaction from the sexual abuse. So, it’s very confusing in their head: “I didn’t want it to happen, but I ended up enjoying it. I didn’t like that it was happening, but it was pleasurable.” And that’s where the issue starts to happen.
She probably isn’t going to realize that what her dad did to her was a bad thing for multiple reasons. Because he was the loving parent and because it was a secret between them. It was something that felt good, and it was the loving peace she needed. And not until you’re an adult do you realize that that loving peace isn’t exactly the way that it should be.
Connecting More Dots on Sexual Abuse
Jaena: This is amazing. You just put words and context to everything I was sensing in her story.
Becky: I am no doctor or therapist by any means but that’s what I’ve picked up. It’s from lots of personal therapy on attachments and listening to survivors. I was hoping that would be what you were looking for.
Jaena: It is, thank you! Now, can you help me understand the other dots I connected? I mean the drug abuse, lacking any fear of losing her life, and how the groomer over-sexualizes the child?
Becky: I think that many unhealed survivors of sexual abuse ascribe the characteristic to them that they’re just sexual. And they may be, but they may not know any other type of love. So, you stick to what you know..
Our bodies and minds learn how we’re loved (or not) from early on. So, if our attachment is only there when it comes to high dopamine/oxytocin situations, you’ll do anything to make sure you feel that feeling. Often chasing that high. OR you’ll do everything to avoid the memory of it which is probably the same thing. You get high to forget or to keep only good feelings and ignore the painful ones.
And when you’re so disgusted with yourself in general and what you must go through, you don’t care about death anymore. Death ultimately becomes what you’re looking for because it’s your first chance at peace.
Jaena: I swear, your insights are so spot on, it’s like you were with me when I video chatted with her. Are you sure you didn’t have my home bugged? <wink!>
Becky: I think that’s the most surprising thing about being an advocate for trafficking. The stories always follow a similar thread.
“Groomers are tricky because they are never mean.”
Becky: Unfortunately, we often ascribe adult information to childlike brain when we’d never expect a child to know better. So, unless you talk to your kids about what is acceptable and not, they just don’t know.
Groomers are tricky because they are never mean. They are overly nice and make it seem like what they want is what the kid thought up. “I got gifts after I performed those acts, so I was obviously loved. He protected me from other abusers. It felt good. It was fun. He wasn’t mean,” etc. The child brain can’t contemplate the adult knowledge.
For example, if you ever played spin the bottle with classmates and were super uncomfortable, you still played and said nothing about it. You didn’t like it but wouldn’t say a word. Now imagine that same feeling as a 5-year-old after your grandpa puts his tongue in your mouth. You don’t know it’s wrong, but you know it doesn’t feel good. But do you have a safe space to talk about it?
Helping Children Understand Their Rights to Their Own Bodies
Jaena: Up until recent years, children have been told, “Respect your elders. Obey the adult because they know better.” If a relative or family friend wants a hug, the child must honor that, whether they feel comfortable hugging or not. While of course, there’s nothing wrong with hugging, if a child is doing so purely out of obligation, how are they going to understand the rights they have in even less comfortable situations?
A new movement that’s been gaining ground is, allowing the child to decide whether or not the adult gets the hug. If the child is uncomfortable, they can say no. If the parents validate the child’s right to say no, without any shame or guilt attached, it helps the child understand they have the right to set boundaries with their own bodies. If they can say no to “good touch” like a hug, they develop more context on saying no to “bad touch,” like the example you used with grandpa sticking his tongue in the child’s mouth.
Becky: Personal internal healing and work is what the world needs. Parents who are healed and aware have more mentally healthy kids. Predators look for kids who need that extra love. They take that place and make the kids feel good. That’s how grooming works. Good feelings can go with bad people. This isn’t a 100% guarantee but statistically a general rule of thumb: mentally healthy kids don’t need to look for love elsewhere.
Helping Survivors of Sexual Abuse
Jaena: What can I do to help survivors of sexual abuse understand that what happened to them was not their fault?
Becky: Keep being supportive. They may come around if they know you’re a safe space.
Jaena: I can also direct them to your site, particularly the survivor podcasts.
Becky: That happens on Emma’s (one of Becky’s co-founders) podcasts. She gets survivors starting to realize and remember they went through similar scenarios.
Jaena: I’m only too happy to recommend your website. Thank you so much for all your valuable education!
That website, one more time is Stand By Survivors LLC.