the road out of oz

These People are Different!

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After the cyclone, Dorothy steps out of her dropped and dilapidated house to encounter the Munchkins, slowly coming out of hiding.

They are not like the people she’s use to. Small in stature, they are warm and winsome. But Dorothy soon discovers the Munchkins are far from naive. They have know their own desperate times, and it is this knowledge, coupled with their warmth, that makes them strangely inviting to Dorothy.

As Dorothy is getting use to the Munchkins, another major character comes on the scene. Glenda, the Good Witch of the South. Glenda may seem a little too good to be true, but she does have a calming effect on Dorothy. She helps Dorothy make sense of what has happened. She also tells Dorothy that to find what she wants, she will need to make a difficult journey. Glenda cannot make the journey for Dorothy, but she can monitor Dorothy’s progress and offer help and guidance along the way.

Admitting that sexual abuse is part of your history can feel like stepping into another world. You begin to encounter people (either randomly or in support groups) who have painful stories like yours. It’s as if they begin to come out of hiding. They understand your fear, your lack of trust, your need for control, and your defensiveness. They are kindred spirits who warmly open up to you…to the point that they can be a little unnerving. They are different.

They’re also different in that they are learning to look at what happened to them without being devastated. They’re learning to master their negativity and experience hope. They are also learning to balance caring for others with caring for themselves. As I said…they are different.

If you’re seriously committed to taking the road out of Oz, you will need another different person in your life. Not a good witch, but a counselor. The idea of seeing a counselor may be scary, or make you feel like you’re more messed up than you want to be. But you will need a counselor to help you make sense of things and guide you through the experience. Your counselor can also be there when you need a little extra help on the journey.

On the road out of Oz, you need these different people. You need people who have been where you’ve been, learned things you haven’t learned, and can support you on your journey out of Oz. You also need a counselor who can help you understand what has happened and help you stay on the road out of Oz.

Not in Kansas Anymore

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When the cyclone finishes with Dorothy, it leaves her disheveled and disoriented. Covered with the dust of the old house, Dorothy makes her way to the front door. She grabs the door knob and wonders what she will find on the other side. Will her family be alright? Will there be anything left of the homestead? What about the farmhands?

She slowly opens the door to discover she’s not in Kansas anymore. The cyclone has moved her from the brown, dusty sepia tones of Kansas to the strange and confusing colors of an unfamiliar place. Dorothy stands there on the threshold between two worlds; the world behind her and the world ahead of her.

Verbalizing your past sexual abuse can feel like getting caught up in a cyclone. It’s a dizzying and disorienting experience that can leave you feeling off balance and nauseous.

After you shake off the dust and regain your balance, you wonder if anything will be the same. You realize you have opened the door to to something. You now stand at the threshold between two worlds; one that is dilapidated but familiar, and one that is promising but uncomfortable.

You feel you need to choose between staying in the old run-down house or venturing out into a strange new world, but you really don’t have a choice. The genie’s out of the bottle. The story’s been told and you can’t un-tell it. You know you can’t go back to the way things were. You’ve already crossed a threshold. Now your only viable option is to move forward.

The journey is about to begin.

The Big One Hits

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Life on the farm gets progressively harder for Dorothy, as she feels Elmia Gulch breathing down her neck. She starts to run away, only to be reminded by Mr. Marvel that there are some things you just can’t run away from.

Just when she decides to give it another try, she sees it. A twister, dark and ominous on the horizon. She knows there is no way to stop it. All she can do is look for shelter and brace herself.

The twister shakes her, spins her, and  disorients her. She begins to see things that start off benign, but suddenly turn dark and frightening.

As her terror reaches a fevered pitch, suddenly there’s a thud followed by a blanketing silence. Dorothy has survived the twister, but something tells her there’s more uncertainty to come.

As a survivor of sexual abuse, you know internally that something’s not right. Maybe you’ve known that sense of disorder and confusion that mounts and makes you want to run away. Perhaps you’ve tried to run away through work, caring for kids, shopping, religious activity, sex, and many other types of distracting activities.

When running away doesn’t work, you decide to buckle down and make things work. You go back and focus your efforts and energies on behavioral problems and surface level issues. But all you’re doing is learning to walk with a limp, rather than deal with the rock in your shoe. The root cause still remains.

Yet, no matter what you do, the cyclone of your abuse keeps coming. You can feel it growing larger on the horizon, and you know it’s unstoppable.

Then it happens. The story comes out. The feelings rush to the front. Confusion and fear begin to spin you and create images that are familiar and frightening.

But just when it seems unbearable, it stops. Like un-kinking a garden hose, the pressure has been released and there’s a relief you hope will last.

You even tell yourself, “There! I’ve done it! I’ve survived letting the story out. Now, on to better things.” But inside, you know there’s more. You know the journey’s not complete. It’s just begun.

From Bad To Worse

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Dorothy’s run-in with Almira Gulch is the beginning of a series of progressively worsening events. No one at home understands why she’s so upset. They’re too busy and they brush her aside with shallow, disjointed advice. She falls into the pig pen and is threatened by the pigs. Then, to top it off, Almira Gulch comes to take Toto from her.

As things go from bad to worse, Dorothy wants to run away. She wants to escape the mounting heaviness of her difficult sepia existence. She wants to go somewhere “over the rainbow” where things are peaceful and non-threatening. But when she starts to run, her guilt and the needs of others call her back.

So she heads back to the life she’s known, sadly resigned to being stuck in sepia forever.

Have you ever felt things were going from bad to worse? Have you ever felt like you were overshadowed by a mountain of difficulties and one more problem would bury you in the rubble?

Your first reaction might be to run. To find a place where things are better and stress is lower. To find that place “over the rainbow.” But no matter where you try to go (physically or emotionally) you still feel unsettled and even guilty. So you go back and try again, and the cycle starts all over.

This building unsettledness is a sign that things are coming to a head and you will not be able to put off the journey much longer.

Skipping the Backstory

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Did you ever notice how The Wizard of Oz  jumps right into the story. After the opening music fades, we immediately see Dorothy and Toto anxiously running home after an altercation with Almira Gulch.

In other words, the movie skips the backstory.

We don’t know what happened to Dorothy’s parents or why she’s living with her aunt and uncle. We don’t know why Dorothy seems closer to her aunt than her uncle. We don’t know what makes Almira Gulch so mean, or how long she’s been that way.

It’s as if the past has been lopped off and all that seems to matter is the present moment and the present crisis.

This is often true for survivors of sexual abuse. If you’ve been the victim of sexual abuse, you want to fix the current problem or crisis and not delve into the painful backstory. You would rather stay away from those memories and feelings and not open that can of worms.

Some survivors have ignored their backstory for so long it’s hard for them to even remember their backstory.

But the backstory is important. It holds the keys to why you’re feeling what you’re feeling and doing what you’re doing. Your present trajectory is impacted by your past experiences. That’s why a counselor will ask you to review what has happened to you, rather than just helping you “fix” your current problems.

Don’t skip the backstory. If you’re serious about healing, you must be willing to look at the reality of your past. It’s a part of your journey on the road out of Oz.

Why "The Road Out of Oz?"

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MGM’s movie adaptation of Frank Baum’s book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was intended solely for entertainment. Yet this movie can also serve as an allegory to guide those on the journey of recovering from sexual abuse.

Early in the movie, Dorothy encounters a frightening twister that threatens her existence and turns her world upside down before leaving her unconscious. Then, she is dropped with a thud in a strange place where she no longer feels safe or secure. Everything is unfamiliar and uncertain. She’s not in Kansas any more and she must decide what she’s going to do.

The Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) reports that in 2003, 14.8% of women had fallen victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime, and 90% of all rape victims were female.*

For these women, sexual abuse tore into their lives like a cyclone, turning everything they knew upside down and rendering them emotionally unconscious. Then one day they awakened with a thud to the realization that life as they knew it was gone. They were “not in Kansas anymore,” and they had to decide what to do.

This realization is the beginning of the road out of Oz. It’s the point where a woman stands at the threshold between the sepia tones of the past and the bright possibility of a new life.