Childhood Grooming

[Ronin]

Idk but in my understanding of things grooming is a *type of* manipulation...

Just a rather specific one.

With its different dynamics, balances & imbalances of power, and the like.

So I'm personally bit confused at seeing it as separate things?

Granted, I didn't read the whole thread well, so likely missing things as of now.

Edited: If the overwhelm & tears main problem words lead to...

Are there any alternative ways you've dealt with overwhelming states / emotions that didn't lead to either crying or self injury? Has something worked in the past?

 

[piratelady]

Do you have some safety plan or agreement with your T about grounding or ending conversations if it is too much?

In therapy I can just say that I don’t want to talk about it anymore and he changes the subject right away. He says if I start to dissociate he can see it in my face and body language and helps me get present again. I’m supposed to try to start being better at noticing that myself though and ask to stop. That’s a skill I haven’t mastered yet.

Idk but in my understanding of things grooming is a *type of* manipulation...

It is. Just in my head I’ve told myself “manipulation” is an everyday thing that isn’t that bad. Grooming is... very bad. Maybe that’s how I got myself backed into this corner in the first place. Or how I’ve at least avoided really dealing with it.

Are there any alternative ways you've dealt with overwhelming states / emotions that didn't lead to either crying or self injury? Has something worked in the past?

I’ve been thinking on this. The answer is: Yes. How I did that, I can’t seem to remember. The big stuff we deal with in therapy where Therapist has skills to keep me on the right path and make sure I’m ok before I leave... like any decent therapist really. I keep wanting to deal with this on my own because I’m so ashamed, but I don’t have enough skills to do that. Of course, then what is therapy for? Now that therapy is tomorrow I don’t think I can talk about it there. I don’t know. I think I’m just rambling again.

 

[Ronin]

Thinking even if rambly helps :tup:
A.k.a. ramble on.

Maybe look into that difference you feel about manipulation (everyone does it, mostly 'no big deal' / shruggable off and bringing on less stress) and grooming (targeted, traumatic, feeling inescapable, despair bringing?)

At least if I'm reading your post right and that's the difference... no worries if not and the difference lies somewhere totally else ;)

But yeah, what makes things manipulation for you, and what the g word, may be a starting point to build off from.

 

[piratelady]

But yeah, what makes things manipulation for you, and what the g word, may be a starting point to build off from.

Manipulation: this can be minor and relate to anything. I could manipulate my husband into letting me get a third cat (I don’t actually want one though, it’s just the first thing I could think of). No real harm would come from that.

G word: that ties directly to sexual abuse. He changed me and made me into a person like he is. I mean, I wouldn’t do that to a child, but the ... he normalized deviant behavior and made me a deviant. This is the damage I can’t fix.

If I had just convinced me husband to get a third cat, we could just take it back to be adopted by someone else. But the G word... I can’t undo that. It’s so ingrained in who I am now. It makes my situation hopeless. I can’t be fixed because of it. Like the physical stuff is over, that won’t happen to me again. But the things he did to my brain and how I think.... that doesn’t go away.

Therapist says the brain can be “re-wired” and we can fix this but I just worry that the damage is permanent

 

[Ronin]

Yeah, roger.

Thing is, didn't do that. No matter how much of you is changed because of things he did to you or put you through, you never were like him, and won't be.

Don't dwell on that thought and give it emotional power - that he's a part of you and influencing your choices and base nature.

His choices were his.
Yours are yours.
Raping a person and doing mental equivalent of it in terms of violation doesn't make him a part of you.

What IS yours is your trauma...
Not him. Trauma with and because of him, but not him.

It's a fine line to walk and mindf*ck to live, some times... but the line is there. And will be emotionally clearer and sharper and more demarcating the more you heal...

Changing that "forever damaged" perception, too. Nah. Not forever. Not even most of your life. Just a few symptomatic years. Blip here and there later. Sharp heartache at other times. But not forever.

 

[Friday]

How can I be a good person if I didn't see that as abuse?

Because grooming WITHOUT abuse is known as friendship?

And good people don’t use a guise of friendship to abuse people?

So why on earth WOULD you see it???

 

[piratelady]

So why on earth WOULD you see it???

My step-dad, when I was a kid, before the abuse started, he would have me read his magazines with him. Looking back on that as an adult, I should have recognized it as abusive and wrong. I didn’t though until Therapist gave me info on grooming. As an adult, looking back, I should have known that was wrong.

 

[Ronin]

You were a kid.

Adults are responsible for not misleading or using kids in *anything*.

Not the kids.
You're blaming yourself, which is very abused!kid thing, so makes sense, but the fault ain't yours. But of the adults.

 

[Sideways]

he would have me read his magazines with him.

Perhaps cut and paste this behaviour into someone else's living room. Someone else's relative. Some other young child being offered personal attention if they join him on the couch and flick through these strange magazines with him.

That's gut-wrenchingly sick. That poor child. How utterly confusing and manipulative of their innocence and childlike need to be cared for. That's all kinds of horrible and messed up and awful.

If you make it about someone else entirely for a while, and sit with that, without you in the picture at all, does it change your emotional response and your thoughts about it?

Tbh? Even just writing out that description made me feel queasy...

 

[piratelady]

@Ronin and @Sideways you’re not understanding. No one ever understands. I know what happened when I was little wasn’t my fault. I’m saying that it changed me. I’m saying that when I was an adult, and looked back at what happened I should have seen it as wrong. But I didn’t. I just thought it was one of the nicer times with him.

But what he and I did changed me. It made me a deviant just like him that I can’t even recognize abuse when I see it. I’m saying that me - adult me- is screwed up now.

 

[Ronin]

No, @piratelady.

I'm fairly sure I understand rather well and so does @Sideways.

We are just responding from an experience & position of challenging several of your core beliefs that keep you stuck...

Hence your walls going back clammed up & the whole "no one ever understands" deal.

Which itself is a part of a distortion and the sooner you're able to take that up in therapy and hear what people are saying instead of self blame, the better. Good luck.

 

[Sideways]

But what he and I did changed me.

Yes, it did. Adult us, suffering from the consequences (including psychological) of abuse, decades later. Right there with you.

It made me a deviant just like him that I can’t even recognize abuse when I see it.

Nope, it made you traumatised, and subsequently develop complex ptsd.

Is your brain wired differently because of what happened to you as a child? Absolutely. We wouldn't have ptsd if it were otherwise.

Can that damage be healed, even for you? Absolutely. Even decades later.

You having issues to resolve because of the damage done doesn't make you like your abuser. You wouldn't do that to a child. So - not even the same ball park.