Question About P*rn

[Suzetig]

What I'm hearing though is that it goes wider than porn and extends to nudity in commonly watched tv programmes. I might decide I don't want a relationship with someone who watches porn thereby limiting people I'll date. I might then limit my dating pool to people who don't watch tv programmes with nudity - thereby seriously limiting the people I'll date and also feeding my hyper vigilance about nudity on tv.

There's a point at which that avoidance becomes so limiting one can't live a normal life and for me it means ptsd has won, and that's not ok with me. It may be worth looking at reasonable boundaries, knowing you might need to take yourself out of the room if your boyfriend wants to watch something on tv that you don't etc. And do work on it in therapy because you may not ever want to watch porn but you do deserve a fulfilling relationship.

 

[Karmic Dreamwork]

Have you tried exposure therapy? If not how do you know how you would feel? Has your therapist suggeste...

I'm exposed to it every day and every day I cant handle it when that happens. its awful. it makes me hate humanity. I cant describe the feeling in words but id rather not be here than be apart of an entire gender that is seen as a sexual identity. its disgusting

I don't know what to do. The more I think about it, the more stressed out I get then I begin to hallucinate. I don't want to deal with that either lol. My therapist think I might have temporal lobe epilepsy but my EEG and brain MRI came back normal.

Thank you

 

[Karmic Dreamwork]

I just want to say that I will never have a relationship with someone who watches porn. That is my...

Thanks. I don't think he actually looks at porn, just that TV show. Which this guy means everything to me. We have been together for over 4 years. He is very supportive but his boundary is to not be controlled, I guess. Last night he told me we are in this together, forever. regarding my issues.

I am happy someone else understands and I'm happy you don't think I am being ridiculous with this problem

 

[Karmic Dreamwork]

What I'm hearing though is that it goes wider than porn and extends to nudity in commonly watched tv pr...

I agree, it is very limiting and very controlling. It would be illogical to try to find someone who doesn't look at anything like that since it's so common (ugh).

Even if I did simply leave the room I would still panic, the thought that it's going on somewhere I've slept and the person I love enjoys it just is something I have a difficult time handling. I don't know, I'm am miles away from where I used to be on these problems but not far enough, it seems.

 

[Friday]

I appreciate all of your guys' advice. But if I had to watch it to try to get over my trigger I would probably shoot myself.

That's not how exposure therapy works. That would be akin to getting over a fear of heights by jumping off a cliff. No bueno.

First what you do are find all the places you ARE okay with. If elbows don't trigger a response? Then you add them to the list of things you're okay with, and move on. As you get closer and closer to things you aren't okay with? Then you stop. Shoulders in bikini strings are fine, but shoulders in bra straps aren't? Male shoulders are fine but female shoulders aren't? Kid shoulders are fine, but adult shoulders aren't? Black and white is fine, but color isn't? ABC races are fine, but XYZ races aren't? IRL Swimming is fine, but movies with swimming aren't? Fat people are fine, but skinny people aren't?

(This is SO not the place to be PC. Our brains make all kinds of wacky connections, in order to break the connection? First you have to find it. If white people trip you out but Asian people don't? That's something to work with. It's a major tool to use. Not something to shy away from. If men posed as pinups make you laugh, but women make you puke? If the firefighters calendar makes you puke, but the Nude Art, naked babies wearing wings, or Grays Anatomy calendar doesn't? Major. Tools. Find everything you're okay with. Really. Even if it's portraits of puritans, or women in abayas. If it's human? And it's skin? Doesn't matter if the *only* part of the human body you're okay with is faces, you start there.)

Et cetera. In a major way. You keep going around in a circle finding the EDGES of a thing. The very first place where there is ANY kind of emotional or physical reaction. And stop. Do. Not. Keep. Going. Instead? Back up. Go around. Until you've got really clearly defined boundaries of what is perfectly fine, and what STARTS to get squidgy. Not even spiky, just a little bit of Ick.

And you work on those.

The amazing things about exposure therapy are

1) That those boundaries you first defined? Move.

2) You never intentionally have to deal with anything more than the beginning of a reaction. If you are? You're moving too fast. Stop. Go back. You only want to just flirt along the edges of a trigger, just the barest beginning of a reaction. And then back away. Come back to it. Back away. Ad naseam.

I've dealt with some triggers in a matter of days. Others have taken YEARS. Most tend to take a few months. But each and every single one? Will actually blunt over time. I just have to keep chipping away at it.

But no matter what the trigger is? The "I would kill myself" reaction never ever ever happens in slow/gradual exposure therapy. Because that's like 6 miles past where the useful/therapeutic zone is.

 

[Karmic Dreamwork]

That's not how exposure therapy works. That would be akin to getting over a fear of heights by jumping o...

that's beautiful, thank you. I will try to pay attention to these things. were any of your triggers the "ill kill myself" kind that you were able to get over?

 

[joeylittle]

Tagging onto what @Friday is saying - @Karmic Dreamwork, I'm curious if you have the same reaction to the nude female form in classical art, or sculpture.

Sometimes it's about finding an expression of the thing that doesn't bother you, and then moving from that to small elements of what does.

Also: you could still decide at the end of the day that you are 100% opposed to live action nudity in any context, be it porn or TV show or art film. But the existence of it should not cause you to suffer so.

 

[Karmic Dreamwork]

Tagging onto what @Friday is saying - @Karmic Dreamwork, I'm c...

artwork and sculptures bother me but not to the extent that nudity involved in sexual expression does, like on tv or pornography. unless my anxiety is awful that day. yesterday I was shopping at the fabric store to get a yarn needle for a quilt I'm making and they had bra pads which showed a breast with nipples on the advertisement for it. made me sick too. and it was just a drawing.
the existence of it makes me nervous but I block it out.

 

[joeylittle]

I'm curious - @Karmic Dreamwork, you mentioned that you aren't ashamed by your own body (which is a great thing, by the way!) - can you look at yourself in a mirror without having clothes on? Or do you get the same anxiety as say what you describe with artwork? Or is it more?

(A small share - for the longest time, I was massively triggered by ink on skin. Any kind of ink on skin. Tattoos, stamps, writing on hands with pens, stained fingers...as in, if I saw ink on skin, in a photo or in real life - I had a visceral response that I could not always control. Very extreme. Eventually I figured it out, but it was for sure very hard to work through. Now it only happens in a very specific circumstance, and I can manage my response enough to not be effected by it. I observe my response, but I'm in control of it, if that makes sense. Part of figuring it out was grasping that I could look at black and white photos of tattoos if they were photographed a certain way. My only point is, sometimes the thing you realize you CAN do is oddly specific, and it's hopefully helpful for you to be in a dialogue about that, here)

 

[Friday]

were any of your triggers the "ill kill myself" kind that you were able to get over?

Yup.

Most of them. Many of the stressors, not so much, but the triggers very much so.

& Yep. Each and every single one that I've actually worked on? I've gotten down to as exciting as celery, or Orion's Belt, or a math equation.

With one caveat; I did things a bit backwards. I went after each of my triggers and stressors, first. And completely ignored most of my traumas. What this has meant in the long run (the first time I did this was 15-20 years ago), is that new trauma cracked my old undealt with trauma wide open a few years ago, and now I'm having to resort all of the old triggers and stressors all over again. :shifty: Along with the new ones from new trauma. Exposure therapy is still working on both the new & old triggers, just like it did before (yay :D) but I'm not making the same mistake, twice. The triggers from the trauma I'd sorted? Are still just as exciting as celery. Non-issues. As are those traumas. The traumas I DIDNT deal with? Those -and their triggers- are just as hard the second time around.

So while blunting & eliminating triggers is still a very big piece of what I'm doing? Don't be me. Go after the root cause, as well. It's such a HUGE relief having those triggers not bother me anymore it's really tempting to just stop there. Really. Don't. Do all if it. Triggers. Stress management. Trauma processing.

 

[Karmic Dreamwork]

I'm curious - @Karmic Dreamwork, you mentioned that you aren't ashamed by your ow...

If I look for too long it will bother me. I can't wear girl clothes because they are tight and forming, it also makes me sick. I tend to wear unisex or male clothing. Loose fitting female pants or pajames are fine. That is also a difficult trigger, that stuff is everywhere too. That's fantastic that you were able to get passed it at least for the most part. that gives me a bit of hope.

@Friday that's fantastic you were able to do it before, which would mean you are more than able to do it again! I am sorry to hear of new trauma. but I feel like you can get through it :)

My trauma is a bit complicated. It's easier to talk about nowadays. It was my mom who put me through all of it. And due to a work injury where I can no longer work (til I have surgery) I am stuck living with her. She is nice to me nowadays. I guess. no threat anymore but I think she's part of the reason why my issues are so bad all the time.

she is also incredibly unstable. She has her own PTSD from her childhood and past abusive relationships. She is incapable of handling anything or apologizing. She has recently defended the man who was also behind it recently and brought him up a couple times. So I think there is no dealing with it with the source - her. So I have to find a way to do it on my own. I am hopefully moving out by September for school but I don't know yet.

 

[joeylittle]

I am stuck living with her. She is nice to me nowadays. I guess. no threat anymore but I think she's part of the reason why my issues are so bad all the time.

First - ugh, I'm sorry, that totally sucks. And second - this is a super-important insight. If you can, when you get the wanting-to-die feeling, try and remember that you are under an extreme amount of stress, and that it makes everything so much harder. That's not a way of diminishing your feelings, but it can be a way of balancing the thoughts out, so that the intensity of your emotional response comes down a little.

PTSD Stress Cup is worth a read.