Childhood Abused as kid, now 42 and new sexual confusion

[someonesomeone]

Hi.
Im really needing opinion from other survivors or understanding people. I stumbled upon this forum by searching for help and it looks a suitable place.

In a nutshell, my father sexual abused me until I was about 10yrs old, on/off by touching or once raping me (the only time I can recall anyway). My childhood was on hindsight entirely sexualised. I can remember sexually touching my younger sibling when I was aged 4 or 5. Obviously I now understand I was probably acting out what was happening to me.

Im now no contact with my mother, father, brother, sister etc as I reported all this to the police and it was dealt with.

The issue I have is that now, out of nowhere, I now seem to be watching porn at almost every opportunity when my wife and family go out.

Ive now started looking for porn that resembles a hot 20 something I saw earlier as if to imagjne what it would be like to have sex with her- even though I know its entirely unrealistic that Id actually risk my marriage over it if offered to me, or unrealistically would be able to have a normal relationship with them due to the generational gap.

And Ive now for some reason started searching for mother/son and brother/sister porn. The thought of this in real life disgusts me to the core. But somehow I imagine how it must be 'good' and even I hate to say a fantasy.

My head is getting more and more screwed up by the day. Ive tried pornblockers and they block too much normal info searches. Theres no way I can discuss this with my wife.

Where do I start? What do you think about me?

 

[Muttly]

Where do I start? What do you think about me?

I will start with the second question. I think you are someone who has been through a lot and I can, unfortunately, relate. My story is very similar. Posting here and working with my therapist taught me I am not a bad person. Porn can tap into a traumatized brain in a very powerful way and it's hard to work through. Trying to let go of the shame is an important part of that. Posting here is a big first step.

If you don't have a therapist, I encourage you to seek one out who is ok talking about trauma and porn.

 

[someonesomeone]

If you don't have a therapist, I encourage you to seek one out who is ok talking about trauma and porn.

Ive had counselling before, and Im on a waiting list to have some more. Probably another 5 or so months.

I hate this part of me.

 

[oceanview]

I'm so sorry you have to hold all of this. It is not your fault. There is nothing wrong with you. What you're experiencing is profoundly normal for a person who has suffered childhood sexual abuse, who is now an adult and needs to heal. I can relate with your experience. You are not alone. For me, the shame and self-hate were/ are a way to control experiences that felt/ feel confusing, overwhelming and annihilating. It was a mechanism for survival which became maladaptive as an adult. Those parts have been trying to help keep you safe and now need you, the adult, to help guide them in another way to integrate and heal, to feel whole. There is nothing disgusting or wrong about what you're experiencing now. What is disgusting is what happened to you as a child. That was not your fault. The shame and self-hate you now feel is the internalized perpetuation of childhood abuse. Have you been able to connect with a therapist yet? Building a safe relational space in therapy will help to create a greater capacity to hold what as a child was too overwhelming to feel. a place of co-regulation and compassion, which will eventually be internalized and offered to yourself. Remember, you are not alone in this. You deserve to heal. A few books that have helped me along the way:
Trauma & Recovery/ Herman
The Body Keeps The Score/ Van Der Kolk
Unbroken, The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong/ McDonald
Unshame/ Spring
The Myth Of Normal/ Mate

 

[Movingforward10]

Where do I start? What do you think about me?

I agree with others. Working on the shame is a good place to start.
.but also a good place to start is taking control. These are your thoughts and actions. You control them. They don't control you. I know it can feel like they control you, and having recently regressed with some sexual fantasies myself when being in a bit of a hole, I understand that it feels like a complusion that you actively engage in knowing it's not healthy and then feeling shame and self hate.
But it is a choice.

Baby steps though. Maybe practice setting little goals? If you don't want to search for certain porn, is there something less shame inducing for you to search?

I hate this part of me.

It's horrible hating yourself.
Can you have a bit of compassion for yourself?

 

[Friday]

Where do I start?

Regardless of whether you have PTSD or not, this is exactly the kind of thing that a great trauma therapist can help you unravel. As trauma therapists deal with ALL issues around trauma, not just PTSD. (MANY, if not most trauma therapists, specialize; DO look for someone who specializes in CSA rather than say, ice climbing or combat). There are dozens and dozens of possible results from trauma. PTSD is only one of many. But if you can get in with a good trauma therapist? You can start making some real progress, very very quickly. Like identifying what, if any, disorders or conditions you may have; laying the ground work for treating them, etc.

Do NOT just click the “trauma” button on therapist searches. That’s almost all of them, the same way almost all doctors treat fever. When you want a cardiologist, trauma therapist, or any other specialty? Look for certifications. With med, that’s a board certified cardiologist. With psych, to find a trauma therapist, look for TF-CBT, EMDR, PET, and other advanced trauma trainings that take years to acquire. Almost all therapists treat “trauma”. Very few of them are trauma therapists.

 

[Rose White]

@someonesomeone can very much relate—father sexually abusing and sexualizing me growing up and unconfirmed memories of him raping me as a baby. Can relate to the sudden intense needs to watch incest porn and pedo porn. A terrible burden to carry especially when being married with kids and having a career. Can lead to isolation and unstable sense of self.

I had a T I worked with for five years who specialized in addiction and csa—lovely person. The porn and rape/pedo fantasies were one of the first thing I worked on because they were the most distressing to my sense of stability. I would feel okay, have an episode and then spiral into substance abuse and self-injury and letting my husband sexually control me because I felt I truly deserved it—I believed I was a pedophile and also someone who wanted to rape geriatric men.

A book that helped me change my rape/pedo fantasies was “The Sexual Healing Journey” by Wendy Maltz, but a male survivor on here said that he didn’t find it as useful because it was geared toward women.

Hopefully you find this place useful. The trauma diaries were helpful for me to just dump shit from my head especially between therapy sessions.

Welcome!

 

[Rose White]

Been feeling a bit haunted by what I wrote so I wrote this in my diary. I am conflicted about sharing it because I don’t want to justify what I did nor do I want to lay judgement on others. So this is kind of exposure for exposure’s sake.

“wrote in another thread about my former impulsive desire to watch incest and/or pedo porn. I have been thinking about explaining that. I never watched actual pedo porn. And I didn’t even watch films. I looked at the Japanese porn anime drawings called yaoi, which depict boys and men. My rape fantasies involved me as a boy being raped by childhood family friends, uncles, and priests. I didn’t want to rape children, I wanted to be a boy who desired sex with adult men. I even fantasized that I was my dad as a boy being by raped by an older man like a camp counselor or pastor. That was a way of taking back control.

The incest videos I watched supposedly portrayed mother and son or daughter and father and the parents were always geriatric. I wanted to be the young man being seduced by an old woman. And I fantasized about kidnapping and raping old men. Because I thought they were useless and horny. And it was another way for me to annihilate my dad in my fantasy.

All this is very upsetting to write about. But it shows how messed up my mind was in order to survive the see-ess-ay. I was able to stop all that within about one to two years of therapy. I am conflicted about posting this in the thread because I don’t want to feel like I’m justifying my porn consumption or saying that the pedo porn was okay because it was yaoi. And I don’t want to make someone feel bad if they actually did watch real pedo porn. I think that’s a terribly dark place to go on here and I’m sorry. I guess it’s something that’s extremely difficult to talk about—the fact that victims of csa are primed to involve children in their sexual fantasies. We don’t talk about that a lot on here—which I think is good because there are sites for pedos to reform. I did think I was a pedo and I have written about that a lot on here. I guess I was a pedo in my mind sort of—but really I was fantasizing about being the victim and wanting it and being a boy victim. All those fantasies gave me agency, is what my T told me.”