Anyone else in love with an incest survivor?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I’m not going to go into my story, because it is immaterial at this point. I’ve worked on it for 20 years, and I’m (remarkably) basically healed. (It would have taken a LOT less time if I’d found professional help sooner, trust me!) I still get mad sometimes, but it isn’t that shattering rage, and my past history isn’t the hinge-point of my life anymore. I still have blind spots, places where I’m just STARTING to grow, and so forth. But not like before. I’m moving on, now, finally, and it feels right. Helps that I got a clue and started working on this at 14, though.

There are resource books designed for partners. You can email me and I’ll offer my suggestions. Don’t want to spam.

I’ll reiterate the main point: See someone. And be willing to keep looking until you find the right someone. I interviewed a dozen people for my first therapist. Not cheap, but very useful. Look into different kinds of therapy, like art therapy, in conjunction with standard approaches. Find resources for partners (check health sites for boards for survivors and spouses - again, shop around, though - some are better than others), and look into finding a group if you can. Some of my best progress was made with alternative therapies, so consider those as well (but also consider CAREFULLY - results count).

If she hasn’t started seeing someone on her own, encourage her, offer to go with her, offer to NOT go with her, whatever will make that first step possible. If she won’t go, start going yourself, because it helps to have some guidance.

There are also books for survivors, but you have to be very careful how you use them - because survivors are very suggestable, and not usually able to filter information on triggering topics well, you can make things worse if you don’t have professional guidance. I know a fair bit about psychology, but not nearly as much as I needed to know in order to navigate the dangers. I didn’t end up doing myself lasting harm, but I didn’t do things in anything like the fastest or best way, either, and I did put myself at risk for making my . Yes, you can make things a bit better ‘all by yourself’ but there is much more to it than that. Find a specialist in PTSD, and start moving forward. It will not be fun - in fact, it will probably get really bad for a while. But that is what love is for - it holds you together for the long haul. And what you get out of it is really really worth it. If she’s beautiful now, imagine how stunning she’ll be when she is FREE. (heck, even ‘mostly free’ is pretty great!)

If your SO needs to talk to someone who is out of the labyrinth, no longer stuck in the muck, email me. It is so free out here. My heart just sings when I notice (again and again) that I’m free of those chains - I own my own body, heart, mind, and soul. The threats I was fed don’t impact my expectations, and I don’t limit myself based on what I was told I was worth. I get to choose my path, and it isn’t hedged about with land-mines and places too scary to tread. My mistakes are my own, now, and so are all my triumphs. Very powerful place to live.

Good luck!

22

end of the missing sentence in the middle there…

but I didn’t do things in anything like the fastest or best way, either, and I did put myself at risk for making my [life and symptoms worse].

23

I did some volunteer work at the Rape Crisis Center in San Antonio. It is a nationwide group and offers well-trained counseling on a sliding pay scale. I was on the first line where I would sit by my phone a night a week and meet people who were recently raped (within the last few hours) and instruct them on what to do (don’t bathe, go to the bathroom, go to the hospital emergency room, etc) to best catch the perpetrator and to keep them as healthy as possible. It was very disheartening. I felt that I was helping but it was perhaps the most painful experience ever. I stuck with it for about a month. I really hated going to the hospital the two times I did it because the people (one woman, one man) were in such bad shape. The guy was gaybashed/gangraped and beaten pretty bad and the woman was raped by her boyfriend and beaten. I know it is not exactly the same as incest since most of the incest victems would be put through emotional/psychological abuse to stay quiet rather than physical abuse. I heard too many stories through the volunteer work to ever be able to forgive either instance of rape. Eventually with counseling life will become easier again.

HUGS!
Sqrl

24

Jeffery…I feel silly even talking about this, since it was hardly traumatic compared to other stories here…but when I was 18 I went to a family wedding. Long story short, I was depressed, drunk and falling out of my dress. My (married, male) cousin saw this as the perfect opportunity to make a serious pass at him. I spilled my drink on him and ran off. I wouldn’t have told my mom, except that she didn’t understand why I wouldn’t get in his car the next day. She said, “Ooh, I should tell his mom…but I don’t want to cause problems.” I shouldn’t have gone along with that, and today I wouldn’t (his wife should have been told about this side of him!), but like you said, few people want to cause “strife”. I can certainly understand, if it’s this unpleasant to talk about these incidents, how a child would not want to talk about hardcore abuse/molestation. Anyone who blames them should spend a week in prison and see how they like it.

25

I meant “a pass at me”.

26

** Sweet Lotus, ** the advice that has been given is so good, that I couldn’t add much, except that repeated incest has to have a ‘special’ environment to grow, and that is a whole lot of silence and disconnectedness from emotional issues. Women who marry men that molest their own children are themselves usually emotionally cut off from the children, which is what leads to the sick atmosphere. So when mom is ‘told’ (believe me folks, they already know, and don’t want to deal with it) she has to disconnect further to stay ‘safe’ for herself, and she is the only one that matters in most of these cases.

Your girlfriend/fiancee has had her sense of herself ripped away, she has few boundaries and she can get ‘inside pain’ mixed up with ‘outside pain’. They can both * feel the same * which is why many survivors start cutting themselves to get the pain on the outside.

She’s also been taught her ‘no’ is powerless, which is why listening to her if she says no to you, and then you respond kindly, she can begin healing just from that.

I was repeatedly molested by my father from ages 9-15, and good ole mom said, ‘he wouldn’t do that’, no he wouldn’t, not to HER, just his daughters. And I did go for help, after many years of thinking, ‘I can handle this’. Now, I’m 46, and I still have insomnia, still see ‘his’ shadow on walls thinking he’s coming in my room, shut and lock doors since I wasn’t allowed to lock him out of anywhere, no place was okay for me to be alone. Allow your girlfriend to know that SHE’S okay, that what she’s feeling is perfectly normal.

HE’S the pervert and evil person, and so is anyone who enables another to do this act on another, messing with their heads, possibly forever.

To all those this has happened to, or those who have felt passion over this devastation, God Bless you for being on the sides of the angels.

27

{{{{{{Jeffery}}}}}}}}} don’t be civil, sweetie. It wasn’t the drugs that ‘made him do it’. Haven’t YOU ever had a drink too many, who did you molest because of it??? Hon, these are evil people, and the way they keep going is ** depending on the civility of normal folks ** They convince themselves ‘they did nothing wrong’ and then because it’s ‘uncomfortable’ and of a sexual nature (even though POWER is the biggest issue of all) ‘normal people’ try to ‘move on’ which means ** keep SILENT ** hiding what is a CRIME.

If that same person had killed you physically, do you think your parents would worry about shame?? No, just THIS crime. Which is the exact thing that perpetrates it. You don’t KNOW of anyone else it happened to in your family because WE DON’T TELL. We suffer in silence, and we (accidentally) make others who suffer stay silent too.

That creep doesn’t feel guilty, he’s glad you’re silent. But, please don’t kid yourself into thinking they quit, just because they aren’t drinking or doing drugs, that is purely incidental.

** You didn’t do anything wrong ** but you’re in your own kind of jail. Speaking out does two things, it frees YOU first, and gives you back some of the personal power that was stolen from you. SECOND, others will come out, maybe NOT right away. They’ll just know it wasn’t their fault because it happened to someone else too.

God bless you sweetie.

28

Well one, I have never had one drink too many, as I have never drank any alcohol.

Secondly, I am the oldest grandchild and not long after this happened he left home and then got put in jail on drug charges and on robbery charges. He spent a few years in jail and then sometime after he got out he got married.

I am sure he had opportunities to do it to other of the grand children but it would have had to have been after he got out of jail.

I think I respressed it for a long time and as I said I have never told anyone. He has changed a lot and I really honestly do not think that he has done it since me and would not do it now. I will not leave my daughters alone with him, though.

I have not been able to even tell my wife, so I cannot imagine being able to tell my father. My father and he have always had a rocky relationship, I guess I would just hate to make it worse if I was the only one he ever did it to.

Also, the memories are kind of foggy, so it almost seems like it never happened, but was just was a dream.

Jeffery

29

I’m continually amazed at how many sick individuals there are out there.

My wife was raped long before we met. In fact, her very first sexual experience was a “date” rape. About four months later the individual stalked her and brutally raped her. That was 19 years ago. She is still not, nor will she ever be, “over it”.

My previous girlfriend carried no such baggage. However, 2 years after we broke up, she was met at her front door by someone that she knew from work. The guy committed a savage rape. She still suffers from anxiety attacks. (She also kept me out of jail by refusing to identify the creep.)

The next prior girlfriend missed out on the horrors of rape, but was molested by her father.

The girlfriend before that managed to get through her formative years without being molested and was never raped. However, her first husband abused her so severely that the marriage lasted less than two months.

GF prior to that one seemed to also survive her teens and made it peacefully to the alter only to have husband of 4 hours sit down on the edge of the bed, break down in tears, and exclaim, “this isn’t going to work”. (Not exactly molestation or abuse, but DAMN what a stigma!)
To anyone and everyone that’s suffered at the hands of another, I offer my deepest sympathy and whatever understanding that a man can offer. To everyone that’s never suffered these kinds of trauma, I’ll repeat the warnings of so many others, “be careful out there”. There really are a LOT of sick people in the world.

30

Sweet Lotus. First I apologize if I came off sounding like she would eventually forget that it ever happened. I know that she probably won’t. I meant that, in time, hopefully, those tragic events will lessen. With the proper help from knowledgable people, and plenty of love and understanding from you, this, I believe, will happen, eventually.

As I read through all of these posts, I was reminded of something that happened to my twin daughters. At the time, they were around 4 or 5 years old. Both my wife and I both worked, so they were in day care during the day. The place where they were was run by and man and his wife. The man was called “cowboy” by all of the kids at the center. One day, while riding in the car, one of my daughters said to my wife, “I don’t like the way Cowboy looks at me when I go to the bathroom.” We were just outraged. To make a long story short, shortly after this, it all came out. The asshole is still in prison. Both of my daughters had some counceling. A couple of years later, my wife and I split up. I have raised my daughters by myself since then. They are 18 years old now. I thank God that they suffered no ill effects from their experience. In all reality, it could have been worse for them.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for so many people. It happens far too often. It is bad enough when it happens, but then the prepetrator makes the victim feel like it’s THEIR fault. And the victim lives with that, quite possibly for the rest of their lives. As I said in my first post on this thread, anybody that does this kind of thing should be dealt with in the most severe way. Prison is not BAD enough for these slimes. They need to be “carved up” first, before they are sent to prison. Then when they get out, if they ever do, they could not do it again. There is NO punishment too severe for these creeps. NONE !!

31

Not to make light of the story, but I don’t get it. She didn’t identify the guy (in a line-up, I presume?), and this somehow kept you out of jail? This makes it sound like you did it. But then, that’s not what you meant, obviously. She could have identified her coworker right? It wouldn’t have had any effect on you.
I don’t mean to be rude, I just don’t get it.

Cheezit: how many people were lining up to beat the shit out of this Cowboy, and how many were holding him down? Five years old… what the HELL goes on in these peoples minds? What could POSSIBLY be sexually attractive about a 5 year old girl??

Some people are just born evil, I guess. Sickening. If anything like that should ever happen to my kids (well, should I ever have any), I don’t know if I would be able to hold back. I don’t know if I could kill a man, but I think a situation like that would bring me frigheningly close, at least. At the very least, I’d mess him up REALLY good.

Bear in mind, I am not an agressive man by nature. Not at all. But this would make me go berserk.

32

Coldy, I think he meant by her refusing to name names, SouthernStyle didn’t know who to beat/kill. Thus keeping him out of jail for murder/battery.

33

D’oh!! Of course. Forgive me SouthernStyle, no offense was intended. I’m sure you took none, so we’re cool, right?

I like to keep things civil with people that openly declare they’re capable of homicide :wink:

34

I wouldn’t call it homicide. I would just say that justice is served.

35

SouthernStyle,

May I politely suggest that you’re attracted to women with problems? Your wife and four previous girlfriends all had been brutalized by men. You dream of beating up (or killing?) the man who raped one of your previous girlfriends. It sounds to me like you have problems with anger. If this had happened to you once or twice, I could chalk it up to luck, but five times?

36

Sadly, Wendell Wagner, I think it is much more likely that most women in Western society have been victimized in some way. Once I tried to name the women I knew who hadn’t been assaulted, raped or stalked, and I could count my total on one hand. And those were just the women I knew well enough to have compared histories with.

37

Thanks, Lotus. I tried to post that last night, but my wonky computer kept crashing for some reason. Time to go dig up the statistics I found again.

According to the website I got these from, most of the following rape statistics are from an April 23, 1992 report from the National Victim Center

As you can see, Wendell is not just hanging out with the wrong kind of women. He’s not attracted to victims. This problem is MUCH more prevalent than you might imagine. For every person in this thread who is open to telling their stories, there are probably four or five who are reading and remaining silent.

38

I’ll tell the stories that I know.
One of my best friends was molested repeatedly by one of her high school teachers. When she finally came out with the info, about 5 years later, even with one other victim that the asshole fucked with, (she found two others that refused to testify) she got him fired. But that was it. No jail time. They revoked his teaching licence, but not his ability to teach in another state. This asshole is still out there.

Then this friend moves far away. Tries to run away from the whole incident, I suppose. She was working for a huge brokerage firm, and one of the brokers got drunk during the Christmas party and raped her.

My best friend (new friend, unrelated to friend A) was gang raped by three men during a party about 2 years ago. After ODing on Coke, going through a rehab program for alchohol, and various other drugs she was attempting to numb herself with, she hasn’t had a drink in 3 months. She is still, however, doing rec drugs and pot. It’s all a form of self-medication, Friend A told me she went through the same thing.

Lotus, in addition to having two of the most important women in my life raped, my father is one of the leading PTSD councilers in the state. He works for the VA, so his clients’ PTSD is battle-related, but the same thing applies. Get your girlfriend in treatment. Furthermore, make sure that whoever she goes to has experiance dealing with incest survivors, and incest-related PTSD if possible. ** Do** contact RAINN. Those people know what they’re doing, and can recommend a therapist in your area. Ask your girlfriend if she wants you at therapy sessions. Let her know that you are here to listen to her, but that you don’t want her to tell you anything unless she feels comfortable.

And let her know that there are those of us out here who are in awe of her stength. She managed to not destroy herself after surviving one of the ugliest things a human being can go through. That goes for all of you incest survivors out there, I applaud your strength and power. In surviving, you prove that those monsters didn’t take your life away from you, though they might have taken your innocence. I am in awe.

39

Gosh, I’d add something, but it looks like everything has been covered. Serves me right for coming in late on the thread.

Just the basics, tho. Love your wife, support her, help her, get her help. Don’t waste time hating the attacker, it’s your wife that needs help, concentrate on her.

40

I will agree with my husband 100%. My stepfather attempted to molest me when I was 12. My mother refused to believe me. My grandparents, however, did. I lived with them for most of my life, then I made the mistake of giving my mother a second chance. She didn’t get a third.

They have two grandchildren that they never will see. We have decided it is for their own good. My husband has been so good to me. It took a long time to completely trust anyone again after that, and we still have some rough nights, even 20+ years later. But it took me completely cutting them out of my life to complete the circle.

A man like you that cares like this is the greatest blessing in the world. She is very fortunate to have you…