Victims Get Help Facing the Future : A book called ‘The Next Step’ is for those who missed out on lessons that are part of growing up in a healthy, nurturing home.

During 16 years of working with adult survivors of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, therapist Jill Raiguel learned that it wasn’t enough to help her clients heal their wounds from the past.

The clues that they needed more in order to move on came from such comments as:

* “I let my husband take charge of everything. I don’t trust my judgment or perceptions at all.”

* “I find it impossible to spend money on myself or even furnish my apartment. The idea sounds so indulgent.”

* “I’ve never married or had a serious relationship. It’s not that I don’t like people; I just decided it was easier to do without them.”

* “I can’t get myself to talk about money when a manager wants my services. After much agony, I finally blurt out a figure that is much too low.”

* “I feel like I’m going through life with one hand tied behind my back.”

These survivors--and many others--lack the basic skills they need to protect themselves from further abuse, develop healthy adult relationships and lead productive, satisfying lives, says Raiguel, a marriage, family and child counselor based in Claremont.

Raiguel has written a self-help book called “The Next Step” (Amethyst Books, $12.95) for those who missed out on lessons that are part of growing up in a healthy, nurturing home.

The recently published book starts with a Life Skills Quiz designed to help readers assess what they are missing, then provides examples and exercises to guide them as they try to fill in the gaps in their upbringing.

Among the 20 life skills covered in the quiz are such basics as building trust, expressing needs and emotions, making friends, developing intimacy, telling the truth, managing money and setting goals. Many survivors of abuse even have to be taught how to have fun, Raiguel says.

Her book encourages readers to let go of the survival strategies they used when they were being abused as children--refusing to see the negative qualities in those they love (“blind spots”) and numbing themselves to pain (“disassociating”), for example--because these self-protective measures hinder them as adults.

Raiguel, a counselor in the Claremont School District, wrote her book for people who live timidly--or recklessly--because they grew up believing the world was a dangerous place and never had a chance to make safe choices as children.

She says she named her book “The Next Step” because many survivors of abuse end up completing a 12-step recovery program and then want to keep moving forward but don’t know how. She also hopes to reach the many survivors of emotional abuse who may not even know they have been victimized.

Raiguel notes that emotional abuse--which occurs “whenever an adult deprives a child of love, a sense of belonging, unconditional acceptance and security”--is often overlooked because it leaves invisible scars.

However, she cautions, emotional abuse can be as traumatic as physical or sexual abuse, and it’s important for survivors to recognize that to avoid ending up in abusive adult relationships.

Raiguel, who is divorced at 43, relates personally to victims of emotional abuse because she grew up with an alcoholic. Her father, who she proudly reports has been sober for 10 years, was a Jekyl and Hyde--gentle and loving when he wasn’t drinking and a bully when he was.

The Life Skills Quiz that Raiguel developed with sociologist Merle Sprinzen includes a number of skills that she acquired when she finally came to terms with her childhood after the breakup of her marriage 10 years ago.

She hopes the quiz will be an eye-opener for others who haven’t fully acknowledged the impact of abuse on their lives.

That’s what it did for 32-year-old Lynn, a client of Raiguel’s who asked to remain anonymous. Lynn, who attended a Life Skills Workshop led by Raiguel two years ago and then began long-term private therapy, says she was physically and emotionally abused by her mother throughout her childhood and had an alcoholic father. She was also sexually abused at the age of 3 by an uncle.

Lynn managed to block out her most painful memories until she got married seven years ago. Then, in the calm, safe, loving atmosphere her husband provided for her, she started having flashbacks. And as she remembered the abuse in her past, she became increasingly uneasy in a lifestyle that represented her first encounter with real stability.

She says Raiguel’s Life Skills Quiz has a name for what she did when she couldn’t handle happiness: self-sabotage.

Lynn, who works in the computer field, started going to bars alone and getting drunk almost every night. Sometimes she slept in her car and didn’t get home until morning. But she never called her husband to let him know where she was or when she’d be back.

She also started spiking her hair and listening to punk rock, which seemed--at its loudest--to express her inner turmoil.

Lynn had been living this way for two years and had nearly driven her husband away when she heard about the two-day Life Skills Workshop that Raiguel offers periodically. The therapist helped her understand that, having been raised in a frightening, unstable environment, she had no preparation for the kind of life her husband was offering her.

“Because they come from a chaotic family, survivors may cling to struggle as a security,” Raiguel explains. “When things start getting good, they sometimes get scared and try to stop their success.”

In “The Next Step,” she suggests survivors work toward overcoming the self-sabotage syndrome by acknowledging their fear of success, replacing negative thoughts with positive ones and taking steps to break self-destructive habits.

Among the exercises she recommends for survivors are writing down affirmations--”I deserve a good life”--10 times daily for 21 days, visualizing themselves succeeding in specific situations and asking friends to help them resist destructive behavior.

Exercises such as these are suggested in each of the chapters on life skills in “The Next Step,” but Raiguel stresses that the self-study program in her book is “no quick fix or substitute for therapy.”

Lynn agrees but says Raiguel’s emphasis on life skills helps survivors become aware of how the abuse in their childhood is reflected in their adult behavior. According to Lynn, that awareness is a big step toward being able to say, “OK, I’m not going to allow this to happen anymore.”

Lynn says that, with Raiguel’s help, she managed to turn her life around just in time to keep her husband from leaving. She shed her punk rock image, stopped drinking and began to appreciate her good fortune in finding a husband who had grown up in a loving home.

Once she learned how to stop sabotaging herself, Lynn was able to acquire some other basic skills that have dramatically changed her life.

For example, she says, she used to be what Raiguel calls an “over-helper,” a role she learned to play as a child who could never do enough to win her parents’ love. As an adult, she was so eager to please that she didn’t know when people were taking advantage of her.

She once spent an exhausting day looking for an apartment for a friend who stayed home and read while waiting for Lynn to call with information.

“I thought I was a good friend, but now I know I was a sucker,” she says.

Today, she has her limits--and makes sure her friends respect them. “I used to do everything for everyone else, and I always came last. Not anymore,” she says emphatically.

Now, she’ll take time away from others to do something for herself, like going to lunch and a movie on a Saturday afternoon. It’s what Raiguel calls “self-nurturing.”

The therapist--who finds time in her own life every day for such rejuvenating activities as walking, napping, reading or relaxing in a hot tub--says survivors tend to feel selfish when they do things for themselves. However, she tells them, those who nurture themselves have more to offer others.

“If I am exhausted, preoccupied and resentful, I don’t have as much to give,” she explains.

For Lynn, acquiring the ability to nurture herself involved learning how to have fun.

“For adults from alcoholic or abusive homes, play may be totally foreign,” Raiguel explains. “They never saw mom and dad laughing together; the family didn’t play recreational games, take vacations that were enjoyable, or just have fun at the dinner table. Attempts at fun may have ended in terrible fights. Playing games meant getting hurt or being made fun of.”

Lynn discovered that her past was interfering with her ability to play. For example, she was unable to find any joy in sailing, a sport her husband loved and wanted to share with her. She found out why she dreaded getting on the boat when Raiguel asked her what she thought about at sea.

Lynn explains: “When you’re sailing, it’s very quiet. There are no distractions. My mother never talked--she just yelled and screamed. And her voice was always in my head when I was sailing, telling me how rotten I was, always condemning.”

Raiguel’s advice to Lynn was to “change the tape” inside her head and block out the yelling. It worked.

“When I found out what was happening, I could say, ‘That woman ruined my childhood. I’m not going to let her ruin my adult life,’ ” Lynn explains.

Today, she is an avid sailor. She has also taken up sky diving and scuba diving, two sports that once terrified her.

“I used to envy people who looked carefree,” she admits.

No more. Every day, she says, she’s getting better at letting go of her past and living in the moment instead of looking ahead with fear, constantly worrying about how she’s going to get through tomorrow.