Posted by daisym on December 2, 2005, at 12:48:46
In reply to Re: Unconscious Seduction -trigger » daisym, posted by antigua on December 1, 2005, at 9:15:39
****Wow, that was hard with the pdoc. I would never have thought to have answered any differently than you did. I don't ever considered my father "a sexual partner" but maybe I should. That's way too hard for me to accept. but you are right and it is true. As a matter of fact, and I think of this often (sorry to trigger) but I do often think of how he ruined me for any type of normal sexual life, and I hate him for that. Braking the innocence of sexuality is probably the worst thing he did to me.. Somehow I've let it color everything and at the heart of it, it makes me a freak,or at least that's how I feel about it.
I agree, I don't think of it that way either -- as a partner, but on a medical level, it is something to be checked out. And I totally agree about the innocence being stolen. One of the things that has been happening for me is an awareness of the reality of what it was like to grow up in my house. For me and for my siblings. Intellectually I knew but emotionally I'm remembering the oppressive fear about doing or saying the wrong thing and the conspiracy of silence that was happening. I asked my therapist two things this week -- 1) did he think that one child usually received the brunt of the abuse? and 2) was being sexually abused worse than being physically abused? He said that often one child in a family did become the lightening rod but in my family it happened to me and to my sister (though she was "just" molested -touched, according to her)and my younger brother "got the sh*t beat out of him." It was hard to hear my therapist list all of this, it made it seem real and ongoing, not disjointed events and isolated incidents of loss of control. I don't know if that makes sense. It is another one of those "how could you not have known it was like this?" questions. But we were so normal -- good schools, good manners, educated parents (heck, my dad has a PhD!) -- even velvet chairs in the living room. *sigh* -- And none of us, except my sister, has ever attempted to talk about it into recently when I tried with my older brother. He said "let it die. It will just hurt mom." And that was the end of that. Why didn't any of us tell? Why didn't we talk to each other about it? I'm struggling with these questions.
After that session I dissociated for several hours. I hurt hugely and didn't function. When I questioned why putting these pieces together resulted in a hurt like this, when they were all things we'd already worked on, my therapist said he thought that I was remembering at a deeper level and that this was some serious mourning that needed to happen.
As far as whether sexually abused or physically abused is worse -- I'm sure it is in the eyes of the victim. But for me, having my entire sex life screwed up seems pretty huge. It was so confusing because it was so twisted up in loving someone so much who was hurting you and keeping them safe instead of yourself. And it was so intimate that it effected the internal me - the self who could have been. Not that I'm minimizing the pain of physical abuse. And one of the hardest moments of that session...really, really hard...was when my therapist sadly and quietly said, "but you were abused both ways - as well as emotionally abused. So what you are really saying is that the sexual abuse was the worst part for you." I sat in total silence.
****But there's an internal and external reality. I can come to the boards and discuss this like an adult (or a child) but if I try to talk about it outside therapy, the reaction is stupefying, and it reinforces my feelings as a freak. That's not to say I talk about it a lot, and I am very careful about it, but even with my husband I feel a judgment that I am a poisoned person because of it.
My husband doesn't know. 25 years ago I told him a tiny bit -- very tiny and we've never discussed it since. It has come up in a horrible way one other time but that is it. So opening all this up now and struggling with sex and other things is super hard. Every once in awhile my therapist will fly the "tell your husband" balloon but I shoot it down immediately. It might be different if my dad was dead. And you are NOT a freak -- but yeah, I know what you mean about talking to other people. I've thought about joining a support group but I'm not ready for that. Babble is my support group for now.
****Sorry if that hurts. It just kind of popped out. My transference is very hard right now too because I can't/won't tell the man in question, because if Ts have trouble w/it, well, you can imagine.
Absolutely. And no, you are honest, not hurtful. It helps me to know other people struggle with the telling part too. I read about all these women who stand up and advocate and declare their survival status. I just can't. It still feels shameful, my shame, not his.
****That's part of my problem. I feel that my perceptions are so distorted, as if there is a manual I never got because of what happened to me.
Exactly! Tamar and I have talked about this. How do you know what is normal? How do you learn how to take turns, or what you like...or what is true. I've reached a point where I can actually ask some of these questions in therapy. (TMI alert) Like oral sex -- I wanted to know why guys like it so much. Or if there was a right thing or wrong thing about it. And my therapist actually answered me, telling me of course that there is no such thing as normal, but he said he is aware that I've never had a safe place to ask the middle school questions about the mechanics. Or to learn how to negotiate this stuff. It is strange sometimes but it has helped me to not think about myself as someone who has no rights around sex. It is a little like melting a glacier but I'm inching along.
****good luck with your T today. Just keep on talking. I had a long sexual talk with mine yesterday, but it didn't really hit home.
It takes lots of discussions I think. But it is good that you can talk to her about everything. I sometimes wonder if it would be easier with a woman but I keep coming back to that it is the person's openness to it, not their gender.
Sorry this got so long. I'm in one of those "need to talk" places today.
poster:daisym
thread:583595
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051130/msgs/584571.html