Thank you. It isn’t easy: many years of therapy, “divorcing” myself from my family, trying different medications. Lots and lots of work. If I put as much energy into my schooling as I spent getting my life back I would probably be done with my B.S.
The freezing up is hard to over come. Remember that your body is belongs to you, no one has a “right” to it, not even your husband. (My ex once said, “You’re my wife, its your job to fuck me.” I moved out the next day.) Try to avoid situations that bring back bad memories or uncomfortable feelings. (I am fond of the kitchen - no baggage there. ) Voice your feelings and opinions; don’t be ashamed of them.
Boy can I relate to that! I totally wish I could use therapy as an extracurricular on my grad school applications. And don’t even get me started on ‘‘the grades that could have been.’’
I like that, never thought of that. One thing I’ve found that really helps me make a clear distinction is wearing lingerie. It’s like, “Okay, I’m putting on my ‘I want to have sex’ costume, not my ‘I’m being molested’ costume.” I never thought of trying places other than the bedroom though. Certainly worth a shot. Thanks a lot.
Oh, btw. Your ex sounds like a total dickhead. You were right to leave him. I remember when I knew I loved my husband… at the beginning of our relationship, when he said, "I’d rather spend a lifetime of just holding your hand and never having sex than being with someone else.’’ (something along those lines.)
Ex-Spouse was one of my steps to recovery. sigh We married because he wanted to and I couldn’t imaging anyone else wanting me - being “damaged goods” and all :rolleyes: . After a while, I realized that I would rather risk being alone than guarentee being miserable. Now I’m married to Mouse_Spouse and he’s wonderful.
You husband sounds like a very good man. This will take time. Good luck to you.
This is a question we go over in group frequently (by the way, for clarity’s sake, I work with an anxiety disorder self-help group, not a sexual abuse group - don’t want people to quote me two years from now saying, “But you SAID you were in a sexual abuse self-help group!”). Recovering is not never having anxiety again, or never having fear again. Fear and anxiety are normal, healthy emotions that would normally be used to keep us from danger. It’s when we get carried away with them and become afraid of these emotions themselves that we get into trouble. So your goal is not to eliminate fear from your life, just eliminate excess, unrealistic fear. THAT I truly believe you can do. Those excess, unrealistic fears are basically lies.
One other point came to mind as I was reading your posts today - you’re 24 years old. I did so much changing and growing in my late twenties and thirties that I hardly feel like the same person some days. You’re on the right track - there’s no expiry date that you must feel better by. I absolutely think you’re going in the right direction, at exactly the right speed for you. Our society is youth-obsessed, but the truth is that getting older is an amazing, wonderful experience.
(I love that I can use Spanish with you, when I’m writing to you I have to make an effort to keep the post in english!)
My grandfather, as I’ve mentioned several times, is one of the people who’ve (tried to) abuse me sexually at different times. I know that I feel as betrayed by my mother (“oh, yes, your grandfather is like that, you’ll just have to learn how to deal with it”) and my grandmother (“Hey! Leave the girl be!”, then five minutes later “oh you slut, why are you provoking my husband?”) as by the satiriatic git himself. And yet, I’m my mother’s primary caretaker, same as she is her parents’.
You’re not alone. Lots of people have already said all I’d say, often better than I would, but this I have to re-say:
it’s not your fault (either the abuse or being nervous)
you’re absolutely lovable and loveworthy
and we, and your husband, love you.
And remember this:
fear and anxiety are NORMAL. Pain is NORMAL. The amounts you’ve suffered and continue to suffer aren’t normal, but being in pain doesn’t make you a “broken person”. It makes you a person who’s strong enough to take it and go on.
{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{olives}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} <- remember, these keep well, so use as needed
The first time I read your post, I was overwhelmed by the pain you suffered, and unable to post.
Though the abuse I suffered doesn’t compare to yours, I feel some of your pain, and your hope as well. Life is truly surprising, and humans are capable of so much love and beauty. I’m glad you and your husband have found each other.
I won’t go into my story, but I’ll just say that I was only able to forgive my stepfather after he died. I hadn’t seen him in years, but I went with my siblings and mother to see him on his deathbed, hoping that somehow he’d acknowledge the harm he’d done. He didn’t. Then I saw his corpse in the coffin, and I wondered how I’d suffered so long for such a miserable, pathetic creature-- who was now dead. I realized then that I had wasted a lot of pain for nothing, that he had long been powerless, but I had been unable to see that.
When the priest in his homily said that he had died a pious, Christian death, I laughed. It just seemed so absurd. Everyone probably put it down to nervousness.
Later, I spoke with my stepsisters. I told them I loved them very much, but that I had hated their father. One of them replied to me: “At least you can say to yourself ‘That man is not my father.’” I always assumed that he treated me that way because I was not his daughter. Now I have lingering doubts, and questions that I don’t dare ask, at least not for the time being.
My life is good now, but my anger at him and my mother was a sort of emotional mortgage on a few decades of my life.
Take good care of yourself, Olives, and stay close to your husband. Whatever you have to go through, never shut him out.
I know I’m biased, being a Spanish major and all, but I love you more and more each day. ¡Aceítunas siempre, mi querida Nava!
I’m sorry for everything you went through too. I’ve noticed a lot of people on these boards have been through childhood abuse and all manner of other painful experiences. It’s awful, but in a way it’s nice to know I’m not alone and not crazy.
Thank you for the well wishing and for sharing a little of yourself here. I understand what you mean by what bitterness can do… I don’t think I’m all that bitter, generally. I know I came off angry in the post, and it’d be a lie to say I’m not insanely pissed at times, but I really don’t have the energy to keep it up. I’ve given him many opportunities to come clean. He won’t. He’s a liar, and I think a little bit sociopathic–never has a shred of feeling for anyone but himself. This isn’t someone I want in my life, but also not someone I’m wasting years of life being bitter toward.
I love my mother so much. I can’t really be angry with her for long–I understand her too well. Others can judge her behavior easily but I can’t because I was there for all the times in between the painful moments. I know what she went through, I know how much pain she was in and I know how hard she tried to do the right thing. Even though she hurt me, I know the things she did for me, the sacrifices she made on my behalf. For a long time it was hard to reconcile the two images of her, but now I have them both firmly in mind. I can resent the bad parts but embrace the good parts. I can protect myself from her, when it’s necessary, and that’s what’s most important.
I talked to my husband and had him read this thread. He said nothing I wrote really surprised him, but one thing he wanted to clarify is that while he felt frustrated and alienated in the past, he doesn’t really feel that way now. He said every time we have sex doesn’t have to have our entire future riding on it. He says we can just enjoy the moment and be grateful for that moment and not worry about anything outside of it. And he understands and respects my right to feel the way he used to–to feel the pressure and the fear and the loss of hope–but he wants me to know he doesn’t feel any of those things. He knows I’m scared but he has hope that things can get better. And he’s prepared to deal with the future no matter what happens. My husband is just so calm and so fearless, he calms me and takes away my fear.
Then I had an individual session with our sex therapist. It was hard, I damn near had a panic attack. She said we were both suffering from performance anxiety. When I described the kinds of things I struggle with–being so far inside my head I can’t really be present, or I feel confused, or I feel pressure to make it a good experience for him since it’s so rare–she seemed to really understand. When I explained that I switched from psychodynamic therapy to CBT because dwelling on the past wasn’t helping me any, she seemed to really understand. She said a lot of the stuff we’d be using was Cognitive Behavioral. I guess it never occurred to me that these tried-and-true therapeutic principles could work with sex as well.
Finally she said that she believes we have great reason to hope that things will get better. She personally believes that we will be helped. She says the strength of our relationship in all other areas is evident and will also give us great strength in tackling this issue.
And for the first time in a long time, I have real hope about this.
Also still trying to cope with the inevitable pain… but with hope, I have a reason to endure it.
I was going to chime in that everyone’s drive is different, and for me at least, it seems that too much sexual activity seems to be the prima facie cause of sadness and depression for me, even without bad associations, then I read this:
And it’s really saddening but I’m glad that it looks like there is still a lot of potential there!
Your quote about pain being an expandable gas really explained a concept that was trying to take form inside little old me, who feels bad at feeling so down when reading stuff like this because I feel I don’t have a “right” to. Of course, that didn’t help me the other day at the doctor’s waiting room where CNN was covering the results of the Iraqi trial and I full-on burst into tears in front of everyone. In retrospect I should have left the room but at least I had the courtesy of covering my eyes, and crying certainly is better than the alternative which would make me look like someone about to go postal especially since I look almost like D-FENS
Sorry for the hijack and here’s hoping everything works out well for you.
olives, I just want to add to the chorus that you are an incredibly brave woman. I also want to clone your husband…you got yourself a winner, there. But you know that.
I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know, or what you’re not already discussing with your psychiatrist. All I can add is that what happened to you as a child did not stem from love, but from evil. What you want to do with your husband comes from love. They are two completely different things, even though the physical contact may be the same. Grabbing someone to slam them into a wall is different from grabbing someone out of the way of a speeding car.
One thing to keep in mind…a healthy sex life with your husband would be the best Fuck Off and Die message you can send to your abusers. Then you are truly free.
Take it slow, don’t fret the stumbles, and know that someday you will get there. Don’t worry about the mountain yet to climb. Look behind you and see how far up you already are.
You think I haven’t struggled with this dual identity my entire life? When I want to have sex, I WANT to have sex, I’m great at it and it’s fun. The problem is 99% of the time I don’t want to have sex.
It’s easy to have sex with people you don’t know very well. It’s hard to have sex with people you love and trust.
Just fuck you. How dare you? You might as well be my mother or every other goddamn person on the planet who’s scrutinized my every word and behavior in the interest of making me look like a lying whore.
Yes, I was abused for years.
Yes, I was in denial even to myself until I turned 17.
Yes, the first time she showed me that penis in the gay porn I screamed. You want me to drag my depressing past into every single goddamn post I make? Maybe I want a little positive sexual narrative in my life. Is that such a goddamn crime?
No, I never actually saw a penis when I was being abused (except the time when I was 3, which I don’t remember.) What else do you want to know about what happened? Do you insist on knowing all the details so that my story ‘‘checks out’’?
Seriously, my respect for you just plummeted. You fucking asshole. Just fuck you.
I don’t have any interest whatsoever in any more details… When I first saw this thread, I felt bad for you but couldn’t think of anything to say that would mean anything. Then I saw that other post which did not seem to comport with this one in any way, and yeah, it made me raise an eyebrow. So what? keep your stories straight and maybe that won’t happen.
Well, he probably “dares” because your “dual identities” seem completely contraditory.
And then you came out of denial, went into therapy and started a legal/family shitstorm you were able to give your boyfriend the most fantabulous blowjob at age 18. But now you can’t touch your husband.
The subject of this thread reads as the opposite of what you said in the other thread. ie
Now I see you’ve left yourself an “out” there, by saying “on a macro/social level”, but you really can’t blame anyone for seeing this as completely weird.
I was sexually abused for years. For me, there are two versions of my past. The “censored” version that I share publically, which doesn’t mention the abuse and I try to avoid mentioning the rift in my family. Then there is the truth.
Sometimes I feel ok about sex and sometimes I don’t. It depends a lot on my mood and what I’ve been exposed to - images that my trigger memories, etc.
From my point of view: Olive’s post you cited was her positive, censored version. What she described in this thread is closer to the truth.
Lame. Her other post doesn’t sound like a “censored” version of the same story, it sounds like a totally different life story complete with a diametrically opposed description of her attitudes towards sex.
) Voice your feelings and opinions; don’t be ashamed of them.
I’ve noticed a lot of people on these boards have been through childhood abuse and all manner of other painful experiences. It’s awful, but in a way it’s nice to know I’m not alone and not crazy.