Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Peddlers of Bad Information

Anyone who works in the helping profession has encountered the aftermath of bad advice or information given by other, possibly well meaning, people in the profession. I just hope that people don't tell stories of things I've said that later turned out to be completely stupid. And, I will admit that lots of times, clients only hear about 1/3 of what you actually say.

So, here are some of the gems I've heard over the years.

I had a 13 year old client who had been raped by a 32 year old man who was hoping hoping hoping she'd gotten pregnant from the attack. Apparently, the only thing she remembered from the hospital experience was a nurse telling her that she would probably never be able to have children now. This girl figured that getting pregnant now might be her only chance to have a child.

I had a woman call our crisis line AFTER spending an hour on the phone with the psychic TOLL number. She actually told me that I didn't tell her anything the people she PAID THROUGH THE NOSE didn't tell her. At least call us first . . .we're free . . . then if you don't like what we tell you . . . pay someone to say the same thing.

I had a client tell me that her old counselor told her that her stress relief of listening to classical music through head phones for a short time every night made her "no better than an alcoholic" because she was just "running away from her problems into the music."

More times than I can count, clients have told me that various people have told them they need to "forgive and forget" about their abuse. I believe that forgiveness cannot be asked for unless the perp acknowledges the harm created by their actions, atones for it in a way meaningful to the victim, and changes their behavior (notice the gender neutral wording?). And I fear that forgetting the abuse is either impossible and/or dangerous.

Years ago, a politician declared that there was no need to be concerned about abortion rights for rape/incest victims because a woman could only get pregnant if they were sexually aroused . . . and if they were sexually aroused, then it wasn't rape. He claimed special knowledge because he was a doctor. In reality, he was a dentist. And, frankly, I'm wondering how good a dentist he could be with such declarations about the openings opposite the mouth. (For the record, the body is biologically programmed to respond to certain stimulation in certain ways. . . . it is entirely possible for someone who is terrified and in fear for their life to also experience the biological indicators of sexual stimulation. It doesn't mean they liked it or wanted it or consented to it.)

I had a mother of a teen victim drag her child into our office and demand that the child take back the "hateful" thing she said about her mother's boyfriend and admit it was all a "lie." The young girl had developed a yeast infection from the antibiotics given to her by the doctor to prevent many sexually transmitted infections . . . but the mother was convinced that the girl had a venereal disease and this was evidence of her child being a "slut." I photo copied the pages out of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" about yeast infections and antibiotics and told the mother that her reaction may have caused as much harm as the assault . . . because the girl had not only lost her innocence, but also her mother.

There's more . . . I'll post them as they come back to me.

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