I Abused My Dog Back Then... Can't Forgive Myself

[Ulah]

So roughly about two years or so ago, when I worked at this one job, and while a relative was slowly dying, (CSA and the like) suppressed memories were surfacing, porn addiction surfacing again and again and I was abused at work... Mom got a little puppy, male pup to keep our other dog company basically. He was a lovely, lovely little dog, softest creature I can remember. But I remember that once he started physically changing, I ended up sexually abusing him. It started with curiously poking the dog's genitals, and escalated from there. I'd give him handjobs, tried to blow him, and rape him once. Though I didn't do the other things after the first attempt, I couldn't stop the touching and it became some f*cked up compulsion like my porn addiction. I don't know why I couldn't stop. I wasn't even legally a kid. I was and am a f*cking adult in my early twenties. I should have known better. I should have walked away. I should have done many different things.

Yet I told myself that he must have 'wanted it' because he never fought back.
But whether he fought back or not... doesn't matter in the end.

And it only stopped when the pup later died from unrelated causes due to some genetic issues when he was barely even a year old.

I'm disgusting and I can't stop feeling so sick at what I've done to this little dog, that did nothing but love me so unconditionally.

Even though I no longer do this, much less have a desire to do such to animals, I can't get it out of my head. I can't forgive, I can't move forward. I'm disgusting no matter what way I look at it.

I just... I'm terrified and sick to my stomach. And I really -want- to tell my therapist. I really do. But I'm scared. I'm so scared of what will happen, and even typing this I can't stop crying.

I just... I don't know if telling my T would help me, or if it would be better to instead learn to forgive myself while tackling my past abuse memories.

I've -never- told anyone this, this is... the first time I've even hinted at it.

 

[Ovot]

You did it. It's over. You regret it terrifically.

Do you think you have suffered enough for acting out your own abuse on the dog?

I do.

You were in a really bad place.

You won't do that again, because you have a conscience.

:hug:

 

[Ago]

...added...it was really brave of you to post that.

 

[Sesuh]

Considering the fact that you were abused I would say that this is something you are acting out because of your abuse. It's going to be incredibly difficult to bring up in therapy but it's going to be something that will be helpful for him/her to know and help YOU overcome. It's actually VERY important that you bring it up.

Consider this posting a first 'practice' at telling your T.

 

[Otege]

Well this is going to break the anyonomous part of this thread but I was forced to have sex with dogs as part of my trauma, I didnt want to and didnt know why but i re-enacted all of the cult's rituals but one; this being one that i re-enacted.

Back before I owned my dog I would allow entact dogs to penatrate me and always punished myself after for being bad and being a nasty whore.

I got my current dog for saftey reasons, he's fixed but i would allow him to do oral on me and it was intermixed with porn and due to it being a cult ritual, it was something I couldnt "just stop" even though I really didnt want to do it (sorta like telling someone to just stop having flashbacks) and so due to wanting to stop but not know how, I posted it here under my user name. I debated a LONG time but really wanted to figure out how to stop so i went ahead and posted it.

It caused a huge reaction but one person gave me a great idea on how to basically turn the ritual on its head and it worked!

It took a while to forgive myself and unsure if i have fully. For a while, I had the thread and one other bookmarked and I would read the threads and the replies and punish myself for doing it to begin with, to abuse an animal though I didnt want to and had no clue why I was, and punished myself for the opinions of others about me...read them and punished myself every single day to remind myself just what a nasty digusting piece of shit i was.

One of those times I re-read the thread about the dog (which is a written account of the first time I had to have sex with a dog as a child) and i cried, for the first time ever, only one tear but i felt pain for the first time about something in my past. And right then, do you know what I realized? What others think of me doesnt matter one f*cking bit. What i did is in the past, it has stayed there and ive been punishing myself enough for it. I have been punished enough; as a child and now.

I was punished in the past, ive been punishing myself, it was time to let it go and tell myself that i dont need to be punished for it anymore...im not doing it anymore!

And since i havent punished myself for it and i havent done it...its in the past and it will stay there.

So now Im proud of myself, proud that I can stop one of the cult's rituals...i can change.

You've changed! You havent done it since and you've been punished enough. Let it go and let it been in the past and heal from this day foward.

It helps to look back, follow it back to your trauma to understand why you did it to begin with and say "I did this because XYZ but I dont anymore, I havent since and I now forgive myself"!

:hug:s from someone that totally gets it!

 

[Igeme]

I just... I'm terrified and sick to my stomach. And I really -want- to tell my therapist. I really do. But I'm scared. I'm so scared of what will happen, and even typing this I can't stop crying.

This happened about 2 years ago? That's pretty recent. Your feelings about it are bound to be incredibly raw.

If you trust your therapist, talk to them. If you are worried about their reaction, ask them if there is anything you could have done that would cause them to remove you from their practice. Figure out where their boundaries are, and make sure you are comfortable. It would set you back giant steps to open up about this to your therapist and have them dismiss you from their practice.

 

[Ulah]

...added...it was really brave of you to post that.

Thank you, at first it was overwhelming as hell to talk about this at all, given I already harbor guilt from my own childhood of physically abusing and killing smaller animals/insects. The list goes on but... It's so hard to forgive myself even when I know that I'm still hurting inside. Cause, I -love- animals and they've saved me just by being there for me. So it just feels weird to love animals despite the things I've done. It's a mess of emotions, and I'm not trying to dismiss what you are telling me... it's just hard when there's this huge portion of my head fighting me over it.

I'd love to be able to shut that part of my head up, even a little bit.

Considering the fact that you were abused I would say that this is something you are acting out because of your abuse.

I'm fairly sure it has something to do with that, though I don't understand how and why I'd end up doing that... when it was pornography exposure via a parent's porn addiction and a more... covert kind of sexual abuse that happened for years. Add that with other life events and It's really f*cking complicated. Even though with my parent it's indirect exposure, it's messed up a lot of things in my life.

As for considering it as practice... that's not a bad idea actually. I've been writing a tiny bit of it in my diary too, even if it's just hinting at it for now in it.

:hug:s from someone that totally gets it!

:hug: Thank you, it means a lot to hear from someone who gets those feelings, even with different traumas. It's a very, very lonely sort of thing to deal with, cause there's this huge veil people toss over these things and pretends it doesn't exist. And it's hard enough to talk about sexual abuse as it is, much less being the one who abused and was abused. And it's so hard to get myself away from it, when it's all too easy to trigger myself into oblivion with the internet and porn. And when you tell people that you did these behaviors as a child and struggle with it now? It's hard for them to relate, even when they want to help badly.

My brain isn't quite working to add more words to this but...

I was expecting so much shit to come at me for this, and was prepared very much so to end up crying and ending up isolating again... So just to have some kind of support...

Seriously thank you again. :hug:

This happened about 2 years ago? That's pretty recent. Your feelings about it are bound to be incredibly raw.

If you trust your therapist, talk to them. If you are worried about their reaction, ask them if there is anything you could have done that would cause them to remove you from their practice. Figure out where their boundaries are, and make sure you are comfortable. It would set you back giant steps to open up about this to your therapist and have them dismiss you from their practice.

I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to talk to my T about it, but I definitely want to try someday. Maybe not nowish, but I feel like eventually I'll be able to let all this pain go. I'm thinking if I keep talking about it in my diary, hinting or otherwise, maybe I can better figure out the words to say when I want to.

Either way, it's comforting to have some support for something like this. It's really helpful and I'll probably bookmark this or something to read more and remind myself when it comes up to forgive myself more.