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Post by bklynrn on Apr 20, 2012 4:20:41 GMT -8
I want to share a part of my story since the sex in recovery thread has allowed this to come up in me--I didn't ever see my first sexual experiences as a problem until two years ago. I didn't see them as a contributing factor to all of my addictions and intimacy issues. I know I made poor choices so I just blamed myself and this type of thinking did nothing for my self esteem. It just kept me in the vicious cycle of self hatred and insecurity. I simply didn't feel much of anything and was very matter of fact about my past. I didn't think I should feel anything of my past but in all reality I was feeling it but the feelings were totally displaced. It was coming up in other areas and in my relationships under certain triggers. That's why I was sometimes explosive and sometimes emotionally disconnected in relationships. I was always logical with my thoughts but the emotions were intense and displaced and usually disproportionate for the situation at hand. I always knew these things happened to me but figured--no big deal BUT then when the cousin who molested me, contacted me on Facebook 2 years ago, after 20+ years of not seeing him...YIKES, i was hit hard with the reality of it all of my past--all at once--I was FLOODED. The day we got in contact, I was sent into a whirlwind of emotions and then when I heard his voice on the phone--I instantly felt the scared and shy little girl in me--the shy and scared little girl I always was--around him. Before he called me for the first time, I remember feeling afraid and excited as the phone rang. Then I heard his voice and he had this very calm manner but almost seductive draw to it--or at least I heard it that way cause it was easier than feeling afraid or angry in that moment. I remember feeling all giddy inside with him on the phone and his first words were --after I laughed and said I can't believe you found me...he said '' wow, you're not a little girl anymore--you're a woman''...I wanted to vomit at first and then I instantly felt sexual feelings...I was not only hit with the emotional pain. I also began remembering all the smells...the smell of the dampness of the basement where things happened. The smell of the musty attic too and i was sent back into childhood in a very real way but I never ever thought that my cousin would became my POA and eventually I began ''acting out'' with him...Yep, with my cousin who molested me. I had to try and make sense of what was going on in my head and what I was feeling in my body. I would cry almost every day and felt the little girl in me who was teased, tormented and sexually abused but could not stop what I was doing with him. I thought I was a relatively sane person before this and then I became this crazy woman having an affair with my married cousin who molested me...WTF!!! The sexual feelings for him were the same feelings I had as a girl BUT this time I was an adult and feeling it the same way the girl did AND finding it all intoxicating. Hard to explain all the feelings that came up but simultaneously I was excited, afraid, eager to please, ashamed, hating myself, hating him, wanting my parents to save me and eroticising the whole experience. Sound familiar? Talk about being flooded with emotions. Needless to say but after a few months of being with him I knew I had some serious issues to address and got into a new type of therapy. I could not stay away from this guy...him too...we were both completely addicted to each other but this addictive pattern was the wounded child acting out and acting out in an attempt to resolve this past abuse..this was the stuff i would feel and do in a lot of my adult relationships but never directly felt it as a part of my past. Strange, bizarre and out of control BUT getting in contact with him became a prime opportunity to begin healing!! In a sense I was revisiting the trauma but the doors were finally opened for me and i feel someone sent him to me so I can heal this part of me. I have always felt like I had two people inside me all the time but with him I felt this on an even more intense level. Turns out this dynamic is me feeling the child and the adult within myself. I was not crazy. The child in me was screaming to be heard,loved, nurtured, rescued and healed. This experience with my cousin has turned out to be a life changing experience for me as bizarre and emotionally chaotic as it was. It woke me up and it rattled the cage I had been living in for most of my life. I finally opened my eyes and got out of the unhappy and co-dependant relationship I was in for 11 years. Finally found a safe place to live that I can call my own and started living my life for me and nobody else. Finally realized I CAN take care of myself on my own and not need someone to feel complete.I have finally found things that make me happy and began setting new goals for myself. I finally got to access a lot of the emotions I felt as a child in a very direct way but I won't lie--I'm not done yet!!! ...I still have rage for this guy that has not yet been fully accessed yet.. I did eventually go on very limited contact with him and got stayed in therapy and started working on these issues. I started a journal and writing out all my feelings as they came up and putting my memories on paper. I even saved the email exchanges between him and I and he even joked about what he did to me--I brought that to my therapist too--- A LOT came up that was stuffed away for more than 20 years!!! Whatever emotion or memory that came up I addressed it to him in my journal and even my mom for not helping me. Doing the inner child work is what I needed to do and experiencing my past with this guy ,all over again, changed my life.... It has been the best work I have done. I'm hoping to put my journals together one day into a recovery type of book. It has been a painful journey but one I wouldn't trade for anything. It allowed me to find myself under all my masks of composure and heal the little girl in me. I had to share this experience. Thanks for reading it.
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Post by Jacarandagirl on Apr 20, 2012 4:34:56 GMT -8
Thanks for writing it all out. I'm touched by your willingness to embrace this recurring event as your opportunity to heal. And you are so obviously healing. I like to think that everything that happens to me is happening so that I can wake up. It helps me to trust life and my higher power when I read a story like yours.
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Post by sunflwrs4evr on Apr 20, 2012 6:54:31 GMT -8
bklynrn......thanks for much for sharing your truth with us....it has touched me so deeply... "I didn't ever see my first sexual experiences as a problem until two years ago". "I didn't see them as a contributing factor to all of my addictions and intimacy issues". Wow thats big!!! I too shrug off my first sexual experience....for more than 40 yrs.... I was dating my best girlfriends brother....and as my counselor put it....i was date raped by him...and i was a virgin at the age of 17....and i remember literally telling myself....well i am a woman now....i was hoping my life was going to change in a more mature way.... As i look back on it today....all i wanted was to loved....and what i was missing was.....my hp and Loving myself....for me that is the love and the truth..... "Turns out this dynamic is me feeling the child and the adult within myself child in me was screaming to be heard,loved, nurtured, rescued and healed". I so heard this all the time....but didnt understand it until being in recovery with LA.... "It has been a painful journey but one I wouldn't trade for anything. It allowed me to find myself under all my masks of composure and heal the little girl in me". Thanks so much for sharing with us because you have just reminded me...how grateful i am for everything in my life....I am so grateful for the boards for being here for us....i love recovery.....One day at a time.... I would love to someday read your journals...We need more of this to help us and to support us... I feel like so much more is coming up for me as i read your share....i think more will be revealed for me as well. I think back to all of my relationships...and they were generally the same....way...like my first experience....for a very long time....more to think about...and more to heal.... Sun  |
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Post by Loving My Life on Apr 20, 2012 8:06:08 GMT -8
bklyrn, thanks for sharing your story, i have never revisited my first sexual experience either, but it was not right, i just forgot it, and i told my dad, but my neighbor friend raped me....this is something i need to look at, later on down the road.
the way you explained hearing your cousins calm & seductive voice, that is how my poa sounds, and just stirs up all of those feelings.
Im so sorry you have to go thru this, but you are so helpful and knowledgeable on this forum.
keep sharing and posting your recovery journey.
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Post by Herenow on Apr 20, 2012 18:39:26 GMT -8
thank you for this powerful post bklynrn, my heart goes out to you and your pain.
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Post by Loving My Life on Apr 21, 2012 11:34:17 GMT -8
This is where the betrayal bond is set, or trauma bond. Incest rape, and kind of exploitive relationship forms a unhealthy bonds. It is very deep, as Im just learning and accepting this is what has happened to me, it is abuse.
Spirit-filled have you read the betrayal bond book? by patrick carnes, it breaks it down, what happens and why.
I just hope i can hold my boundaries, and just say no and heal from all of this. Because that bond is so deep, i just have to stay hyper-viligant, so my dead man walking never gets control over me again.
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Post by Loving My Life on Apr 21, 2012 13:07:16 GMT -8
spirit, have you dealt with your incest rape, through counseling? because it might rear its ugly head later in your life, maybe this is why you protect yourself by not getting into a relationship. but once you become aware of what is going on, you can have a healthy relationships.
I have never experienced abuse, all of this is new to me, but i know now how to protect myself, so i do not become a victim again.
Diane, made the book recommendation to me, it has taken me a couple of months too read, because it was very painful to realize what my dead man walking did to me. I did not want to read it, it scared me, because i could not stay in denial any longer. Im finishing the book today.
Just look into your past experience as well, they have incest support groups also, dont carry that burden.
I just read a passage at the end of this book, it says
Survivors embedded in traumatic shame become so other-directed that they lose their sense of self. They feel like the exploitation is their fault. The victim then carries the shame of the abuser and is shameful. The abuser however, remains shameless. The victims become more desperate for the approval of others."
Take your powers back, we do not have to carry the abusers burdens anymore.
Im sorry you had to suffer also Spirit. Hugs to you.
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Post by Havefaith on Apr 21, 2012 13:35:39 GMT -8
bklynrn -- thank you for sharing your experience. It validates that the abuse we suffered does indeed contribute strongly to our addictive tendencies, repetition compulsion, and our skewed view of love/intimacy. Only through intense therapy (inner child work, self-awareness, facing the fear and anguish of my past) am I beginning to recover. Slowly.... But I do know I'm finally doing the work necessary to heal. Again, thank you SO much for putting your very personal story out there for the rest of us; it is one of hope and healing.
HaveFaith
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Post by bklynrn on Apr 21, 2012 18:43:34 GMT -8
Thank you all for the support and even reading part of my story. Your kindness means a lot to me. There is so much more to this and my story.
Yes, Carolyn..my cousin and me had this trauma bond. He was not an adult though. He was a teen when all of this was going on with me and him. I was 7 when it started and it went on until i was 11. My cousins were the ONLY outsiders allowed in my house. My dad was sick, my mom was so stressed all the time and VERY emotionally and pysically abusive. So only family was welcomed in. My cousin, in a fantasy type way, saved me from the sadness and abuse in the house. When he was there, my mom didn't have to bother with me. So I was out of her hair and she would never abuse me in front of him. She wouldn't want that getting to my aunt(his mother) so in a sick sense--he saved me from her abuse but he gave me his own. He would threaten to leave my house if I didn't submit to his wants and needs and I would BEG him to PLEASE DON'T GO...but there was a price to pay in him staying. So I learned to put up and shut up if I wanted him to stay. He admitted to me two years ago that he loved making me cry and loved having me beg him to stay. He said he felt powerful. He put that in an email and I saved it--brought it with me to a therapy session and many other emails. I felt his emails validated all that happened. I now had proof that I couldn't even deny if I wanted. Talk about trauma and abandonment issues. I had so many old wounds that got opened up when we got in contact. The last time I saw him was at my father's funeral and during our conversations two years ago we spoke about my father and that opened up another old unhealed wound. Him and I drifted in and out of our childhood family memories and sexual content--just bizarre and yet I felt emotionally close to him and hated him too. My emotions were so intense. He's family and our family was close back then. It's just so complex.
I share all of this for a reason. This is not just for me alone. Yes, it's chathartic but I hope that someone gets something from this. I have more of me to share. The work I'm doing, while painful, is putting me in a place in life that I was not in two years ago. If I can go to these deep dark places,put it out here for everyone and still hold my head up, feel comfortable with who I am and who I'm still becoming, be productive at work, have a life and new friends, be content with being single,stay focused on my job, stay focused on my education and still keep recovery in the works then I would hope anyone would feel they can too. And maybe get in touch with some of their own old wounds. Maybe heal those wounds too--in time.
Thanks again for taking the time to read this.
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Post by Havefaith on Apr 21, 2012 19:23:59 GMT -8
bklynrn, you wrote "...If I can go to these deep dark places, put it out here for everyone and still hold my head up...."
Yes, you will absolutely hold your head up high! NONE of this was your fault or your choice. You are speaking the truth, facing the truth, processing the truth -- about the pain inflicted upon you. If anyone should be hanging their heads in shame, it is the perpetrators of our pain, those who drove us to those 'deep dark places' ...
HaveFaith
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Post by bklynrn on Apr 22, 2012 1:34:01 GMT -8
Thank you again, Havefaith
@spirit--''Thank God I didn't have that bonding you mentioned'' I never felt any sort of bond with this man until he found me on Facebook 2 years ago. Now that I think about it, 30 years went by since I saw him last and I had no thoughts about him. THEN we connected and I was thrown back to being 7,8, 9,10 and 11 years old again. Feeling the same connection I had with him as a child. I never ever thought in any of my wildest dreams that I can feel what I felt for that man as I did when we connected. Had I confronted this years ago maybe I would have had some tools to know what I was feeling when he found me. I knew these feelings were totally displaced but I had not one ounce of control over them. NOT ONE. The child was driving all my actions but this all brought me here--to recovery.
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Post by Jacarandagirl on Apr 22, 2012 3:29:51 GMT -8
I think your recovery work will strengthen for sharing this, and I'm sure you're right that it could help someone else deal with their situation too. What I get it that somehow your HP put this person there in your life and I think it was a kind thing that you didn't have to deal with your mother's abuse all the time, and while it wasn't all healthy with him by any means, there is innocence there. You sound like you are working out your feelings about it and coming to terms with it really well.
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Post by Herenow on Apr 22, 2012 5:38:19 GMT -8
bklynrn,
I am so sorry you had to go through all of this and it makes so much sense when you look at the whole picture. What a gift to have so many wounds open up to heal. Hard work though it must be you are really going to recover yourself self, your whole self.
Thank you so much for sharing this part of your journey/recovery.
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Post by Freetolive on Apr 22, 2012 6:54:58 GMT -8
Powerful reading here bkl...Glad you are here to share your hope. Last night I had the door to my shame reopened. It's cool how my creator does that for me. I'll think I'm all well and then I get reminded that I'm still on the path to recovery. Time to get up and start walking again. It's like the little boy finds a safe bush or tree and he crawls inside and is protected by the branches. He can see out, but no one can see in. So he wants to stay there and hide. But he forgets that he gets hungry, and lonely at times and his reality is only based in survival. But I'm grateful I'm on this path.
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Post by overcomer on Apr 23, 2012 4:32:59 GMT -8
Sharing like this is what makes me more in awe of my HP and full of gratitude to Him and reignites my passion for Him. Why?
He miraculously delivered me 100% from the natural results of molestation and abuses. I don't have hang-ups or any past baggage with me. I know it's NOT ME, *it has to be* GOD'S HAND/WORK. Just like Joyce Meyer and others whose lives got redeemed by their faith in God, I'm a new creation, old things have passed, all things become new. I'm seeing the "new things" He is creating daily.
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Post by bklynrn on Apr 24, 2012 2:45:27 GMT -8
That's wonderful for you Spirit....I'm taking a different path though. One of truth and free from the family lies and secrets. Those secrets kept me in a prison within my own mind and body. The lies and secrets kept me bound to shame and addiction. The truth is setting me free and has put me in a new place in life.....
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Post by Herenow on Apr 24, 2012 2:52:39 GMT -8
bklynrn
it is so for me as well, the truth is what sets me free. as they say "you are only as sick as your secrets".
Powerful work you are doing. Very inspiring...
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Post by overcomer on Apr 24, 2012 4:07:28 GMT -8
Amen! It's the truth that has set me from all the lies of the Enemy. Where the Spirit of God is there is liberty.  |
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