Childhood Childhood sexual abuse stuff coming up - help

[BraveIglee]

Someone had said something to me that I’m going to tell you.

She was continually pressuring me into talking about specific sexual encounters that I had with my father and my brother. At one point, I broke down telling her about how my body was doing really weird stuff when they were doing things to me. Like an excitement or enjoyment that I cannot explain. A sensation. My body like liked what was happening.

I didn’t though. I really didn’t. You’ve got to believe me…I really didn’t like it. My body like became out of control with my breathing and heart rate and it was shaking.

The person said that I did because obviously if my body “felt like that.” I think this is why she was always asking me if I had ever consented, and why I didn’t fight back, and it was like she was trying to get me to say that I consented. At one point, she had gotten upset with me because I told her I didn’t like it and she said “well, you just told me that you felt some kind of excitment or enjoyment.” I was broken.

But, this leaves me all confused. What they did (my father and my brother) was scary. Yet I feel so guilty and shameful because my stupid body did what it did. It is almost impossible to tell anyone. It was a secret that I had kept in for so long because of how dirty I feel. Dawn was the first person I ever told and she was saying I enjoyed it because of my reaction.

I don’t really know how to make sense of it, but I find it so hard to talk to anyone about it because I don’t want them to tell me what that person has told me. I feel like I’m trapped with this thing. I don’t want people to judge me. I didn’t want it or like it. I really didn’t. I don’t understand why my body did that and I am so confused. Like I know what my body did was wrong…but to me there was no way to stop it or control it. I think is why it is so hard and seemingly impossible to talk about what they did. Why I can only come so far and then its like something breaks inside of me and I feel like I would fall apart if I continue to talk about what they did.

Please don’t judge me…but its like even when I am trying to talk/think about it my body begins to feel all weird. I am disgusted and really don’t know what is wrong with me. What they did hurt and what they did was wrong, yet I feel so guilty because I guess sometimes to my body everything felt good. Like it makes me sick right now because it wasn’t good. I feel really, really conflicted because…because it felt good. Oh I’m so sick to even say that. My body did things that I didn’t want it to but I couldn’t stop it.

People will never believe me when I say I didn’t want it to happen when i tell them that somehow at the very same time it felt good. I was terrified, yet I don’t think anyone will believe that because of those weird feelings. Like I hate to admit something felt good. Like how can that feel good…like was even abuse if it felt good. Like how can I have been sexual abused yet instead of feeling pain which I have I also sometimes felt good. Like I can’t even believe I am writing this to you but I am. I can’t talk to anyone about it. Its like once I try my body seems to react in a way I have to stop or I am going to break. I don’t know maybe that person was right…

I hope you don’t feel I am crazy. I hold this dirty secret in so close and try so hard to block it all out of my head. I don’t ever want to tell anyone or talk with anyone about this secret because how can I make them understand how scary, confusing, and destructive all these things have been after I finish trying to explain this secret.

I don’t know please help me understand even if what that person said is true. This is something I have kept in for so long and I know its really seemingly impossible to talk about it with anyone else at this point. I don’t know if I will ever be able to. I don’t even really know why I am now but I guess I need to know. I can try to tell you more if you need me to…I don’t know. Will you even know or understand what happened. Or am I really messed up. Please help me.

 

[bellbird]

I don't judge you. At all.
And I am so so sorry for what you went through. I am sorry that your friend pushed you for information like that.

I'm not a sexual abuse survivor, but I do understand what you're describing. I have heard of other survivors feeling not-bad-feelings during assault. You aren't the only one. And it doesn't make what they did to you any less bad.

This article may be of some help: The Shame No One Talks About In Sexual Abuse - Dr. Margaret Rutherford

or this one: Myths About Rape, Sexual Abuse, and Sexual Assault
"MYTH: Sexual abuse never involves pleasure for the victim. REALITY: Many adult survivors report a deep sense of shame, because as children they were sexually abused, and they felt some pleasure while it was happening. Perhaps the abuse was the only affection they got, perhaps it was soothing, perhaps the perpetrator got off on making the victim feel pleasure, whatever. Just because the victim felt pleasure, that doesn't mean that they weren't horribly violated. Human bodies are designed to feel pleasure and respond in particular ways to particular kinds of touch. If a victim's body responds, it doesn't negate the abuse. The violation is still there: the perpetrator is still using the victim for their own ends, and has still usurped the victim's free will and right to let their own sexuality develop as it will."

 

[EveHarrington]

It sounds like you crossed paths with a sociopath who sought to exploit you. That “friend” was no friend at all.

 

[Swift]

Hey there.
What a brave, brave post. I'm so sorry for the distress you're going through.
Your 'friend' isn't really your friend if she's saying that. It's a deeply. Deeply, wrong thing to say. I'm so sorry.
I'm sorry about everything that happened to you.
I'm a CSA survivor too. And the exact same thing happened with me. I bet you don't think that that means I secretly liked it. What would you say to me? Try saying that to yourself.
Please listen to this bit -
It was not your fault. Your body's reactions have nothing to do with your mind - whether you 'liked' it or not, which you didn't.
Our bodies... respond involuntarily. It's what they do. It sucks and it's bullshit.
All it means is you have a working nervous system.
I used to be an EEG tech so I try to understand things by what the nervous system does, I guess. It helps for me, so if it doesnt for you I'm sorry, but, ny understanding is...
Your body's responses are encoded in the back of your brain, the bit we share with Neanderthals and lizards. That bit of our brain is devoted to the four Fs - fighting, fleeing, feeding and... mating.
Because that bit of your brain enlarges with PTSD, it's more intense.
The feelings we get when sexual parts of our anatomy are stimulated is something we have no concious control over. Our front-brains, the bits that think in words and terms of "liking it", aren't involved in that process at all. Our biology is wired like that. It's unclear why people with female anatomy orgasm, but that base part of the brain is the only bit that lights up on an MRI when we do. So, science says your friend is completely and totally wrong.
You can tickle someone who hates being tickled, and they'll laugh. Stimulate the right spot and your muscles will jerk involuntarily. Same thing with any other part of your anatomy.
It's the worst feeling to consider you might have liked it. You absolutely, unequivocally, 110% didn't. Even if you had it would still have been wrong.
Sending much support.

 

[JG75]

Hi, well done for getting the courage to speak about what happened here. I’m also a CSA survivor and I wrote to my therapist about this for the first time last week. Like you, I’ve carried the shame surrounding it for a long time and never thought I’d ever be able to tell anyone else.

At the moment I’m not ready to speak about it in person but at least my therapist is aware and she was completely supportive at my last session. To put it lightly, I think your friend is misinformed and doesn’t understand what abuse survivors go through but there are plenty of people here who understand and won’t judge.

I hope that over time you’ll find someone you can talk to who won’t judge.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

@BraveIglee , my father, my main perpetrator, would exploit my body's natural reaction/response to sexual stimulation. It's taken me a long to accept that how my body reacted/responded to his touch and sexual assault was natural and that I couldn't stop it if I tried.

 

[cptbildad]

It's ok to have felt pleasure! Like the most intense wonderful pleasure your body will ever experience. The most pleasurable experience(s) I have had *sensually* (that is in physical sensation) was during the year or so I was being routinely raped by a family friend as a young child. There is nothing shameful about having in some way (or in many ways!) been pleased by your rapist. In fact, your abuser probably really enjoyed watching you experience pleasure. That is a very attractive thing to a sexual abuser, to force someone to experience pleasure against their will. The fantastic thing is that you get to own all of the pleasure that your abuser caused you. All those pleasurable body memories and feelings are you own. You get to control them now. A great part about growth for CSA survivors is the reclamation of pleasure. By allowing yourself to freely experience the pleasures of your abuse, you are actually setting yourself free from the control that the abuse has over you. This doesn't come naturally, and you'll need someone to guide you through what that looks like for you, but it is excellent to experience the pleasure connected to your abuse, it was the best (and worst) part of your abuse. The best part because it is the part that is pleasurable, but the worst part because there is an absolutely soul-crushing amount of shame connected to your pleasure, and usually the most intimate types of pleasure a human will ever experience.