The child entrapped in this kind of horror develops the belief that she is somehow responsible for the crimes of her abusers. Simply by virtue of her existence on earth, she believes that she has driven the most powerful people in her world to do terrible things. Surely, then, her nature must be thoroughly evil. The language of the self becomes a language of abomination. Survivors routinely describe themselves as outside the compact of ordinary human relations, as supernatural creatures or nonhuman life forms. They think of themselves as witches, vampires, whores, dogs, rats, or snakes. Some use the imagery of excrement or filth to describe their inner sense of self. In the words of an incest survivor: “I am filled with black slime. If I open my mouth it will pour out. I think of myself as the sewer silt that a snake would breed upon.”
Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman
If anyone’s wondering, that second quotation is Alexander A. Myers, “‘Embraces Forcible and Foul’: Viewing Milton’s Sin as a Rape Victim,” Milton Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1 (March 1994), pp. 11-16. If you have JSTOR access, the direct link is here.
