Childhood CSA, possibly CoCSA, problem with memories. Help!

[mimio]

Thanks to everyone who will read my post! Sorry, it's long.

At the age of 7-8 I experienced sexual assault from a man, who was selling cute toys made from shells, in the summer camp. He was touching my private area and penetrating it with his fingers in public area (beach), and no one was caring about it. This was done to me multiple times (starting from 4) in a form of manipulating me to sit near him so he can do this to me. There was a time when I was swimming in the sea and he came to the beach and stared at me very scary, waiting for me to come. I don't remember the details of everything that happened, but I suspect that there's could be (but not necessarily) something more to it, as I remember he was going to go somewhere, and I was asking to go with him and help him with something (It very much could be another assault, maybe even oral or different, I really don't remember, just guessing).

So it's the main story from which started my journey.
A year and a half (maybe 2 years) ago I started to try and remember my past. This all was quite randomly. My life was really messed up, depressed and sexually unstable(?). I remembered this certain trauma, but I never really thought about it and just lived with it not understanding that this is a root of all my problems. After I started to think about this traumatic experience more, I started to go deep into this and decided that in my childhood were definitely a lot more abuse that I thought was happening.

These are the things why I think that:

• constant maladaptive daydreaming since 5-6 years old (this started before camp and, well, continues now but in a lot less severe form) about sex/sexual things with real people, characters, often concluding me or my alter ego (this can be any fictional character which I kinda represent, often unconsciously, in my scenario. often this alter ego being raped or violently bitten, generally humiliated). This maladaptive daydreaming was with me almost all day, and 2-3 hours in night when I tried to sleep but because of this thoughts couldn't. This in the end turned into insomnia. I dissociated almost my whole life.

• soreness and pain in the private area in my childhood while going to the toilet (until 12 y.o, but now I have pain in my vaginal and pubis area (not while on toilet)). because of this pain I cried a lot but I was afraid to tell mom, and this is really strange to me. I told her one time and was afraid of what will dad say... I don't know why I was afraid of him and this is strange to me.

• moment in my childhood (like... when I 6-7 years old?) where I slept first time in a while without shirt and was afraid dad is going to rape me... again? In this memory it felt like it's already happened once...

• I was pissing myself a lot in childhood, and heard that this is a sign.

• I had thoughts when I was 6-7 years old where big man with the similar complexity of my father raped me or humiliated (when I say humiliated It's like the most f*cked up things that even without sexual context are... utterly disgusting and scary).

• Almost all memories of childhood before 10 years old are lost. In general I have really bad memory and can't remember almost anything from my whole life.

• Strange memories from childhood that are bounded to my dad: 1) Hysterics when I needed to be washed in my private area by my dad because mom wasn't at home. 2) Game where dad didn't let me go through corridor until I say "special word" and when I tried to run past him he caught me very tight and I was scared and cried. He often didn't stop. 3) I was very touchy with him until 9-10 years old, after this I felt resentment, and in 9-10 years old I started to feel depressed and cried a lot, was suicidal and started to understand I am lesbian. 4) My dad begged me to lie beside him in childhood. 5) Mom was always afraid and angry when he was really touchy with me. 6) I started being more feminine last year and he started being really weird, almost afraid seeing me in skirts.

• Don't know if this makes sense but my brother is really... Sexually active and has problems with hypersexuality I think? He is a lot older than me. And there was one time when we fought a little and he pressed me to a bed and squeezed my legs between his and was very scary, also his private area became like... Don't know how to say... very visible to me but he was in pants.

• When I was 12 I had a lot of bad and dirty thoughts about my brother and dad.

I'm pretty sure that something was happening constantly in my childhood. I'm trying to not make some false memories, so I'm very cautious with retrieving what happened.

Also a little details about other bad and strange things, which happened not at home.

• In those camps (I was in two, both were strange but I was assaulted in first) boys were really scary and I have like really blurry memories of something happening to me... I very much think some CoCSA happened there and I remember imitating oral sex, but I'm not entirely sure, just know that those boys were sexually unsafe to girls and scary.

• I remember how boy with a disability would forcefully kiss me, hug me, touch me in various places while I begged to stop and cried really hard. Our moms just laughed at us.

• Highschooler was obsessed with me when I was in middle school and said that he likes that I'm little and short and he wants me to be his girlfriend or something. I really disliked him and his ideas and words, but I was a people pleaser so I still was near him despite being really angry at him and begging to stop when he tried to hug and pat me (I don't remember what else he did, it's very blurry, I just know that he manipulated me into doing what he wanted with me)

• A lot of blurry memories with me being small and highschoolers mocking me and pressing me into the wall.

• A lot of other strange memories.

I was assaulted a lot, and afraid of what more I can remember.

I want to say that I never felt like really sorry for myself in this way and never cried because of these memories. My empathy for myself just switches off in these moments...

Other details is that I had a 3 year old period of me lying (not with bad intentions) to people on internet that I was raped a lot of times by men, that I am bullied because of my sexual orientation (and raped) and things all like that. I was lying to random strangers, in anonym chats and to my internet friend. I think I did this for validation, because my mom don't like to feel sorry for people and validate them.

I want to say that I didn't watch any porn before 8 years old and didn't see any sexual things even from my parents, but my mom damaged my understanding of sexual privacy by washing me in private areas until 14 years old, so that why I was easy target to be assaulted by people.

I really don't believe that it can be my dad because he was always really kind to me, but only people who really could do something to me is dad and brother... And facts are pointing to me. Grandfather also maybe but I saw him really rarely.

Please give me opinion on all this thing with my dad... And also I would like to hear advices on retrieving memories, as they are important to me (I already tried EMDR).

 

[Sideways]

Wow, you’ve got a lot there to unpack. Are you currently working with a trauma specialist? It sounds like you’re experiencing a lot of distress about this, and that distress is where I’d start.

Thing about seeking out missing memory: our brains problem solve and fill in gaps with their best guess. They do this all day, every day. It’s how we function.

If you ask your brain to fill gaps, it will do that. But if you’re after memories that aren’t there, or don’t have access to right now, you brain will go right ahead and do what it always does - filling those gaps with its best guess, and wrap it all up as Completely Accurate. The way that it always does.

And if you do that starting from a place of distress? That will influence how your brain fills those gaps as well. It won’t necessarily be at all accurate, but your brain will oblige with something if you push hard enough.

That’s why most trauma therapists only go ‘digging’ with extreme caution, and done in a way that is fully informed about how our brains and memory works.

The thing is - you were sexually assaulted when you were a young child. A man penetrating you digitally (with his fingers), in public no less, is an extremely traumatic event for anyone. And you were an toddler.

That’s a lot. It may well explain all the subsequent dysfunction and distress you’ve been experiencing. Could there ‘be more’? Sure. But all by itself, it’s a very significant trauma, which could very easily give rise to subsequent mental health issues (including, but not limited to, ptsd).

Your life doesn’t need to be this hard. You don’t need to cope with this pervasive level of distress all the time. You deserve to heal from that.

So that’s where I’d start.

 

[arfie]

hello mimio. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

i started psychotherapy with full trauma induced amnesia. regaining those memories was harder, more confusing work than i ever want to do. one of the gnarliest branches of that hard and confusing work was, "self-gaslighting." self-gaslighting is where a memory begins with an element of truth, but i begin projecting, conjecturing, and generally over-thinking the emerging memory and end up with a memory that is more fiction than fact. untangling those gaslighted memories can be harder than hard.

over the course of the amnesia therapy, i learned to detach as far as i could from the emerging memory and let it unfold of its own accord. that detachment is far easier to say than do. it took me years to master the technique.

but that is me and every case is unique.

steadying support while you sort your own case. welcome aboard. sort freely. sort often.

 

[mimio]

Wow, you’ve got a lot there to unpack. Are you currently working with a trauma specialist? It sounds like you’re experiencing a lot of distress about this, and that distress is where I’d start.

Thing about seeking out missing memory: our brains problem solve and fill in gaps with their best guess. They do this all day, every day. It’s how we function.

If you ask your brain to fill gaps, it will do that. But if you’re after memories that aren’t there, or don’t have access to right now, you brain will go right ahead and do what it always does - filling those gaps with its best guess, and wrap it all up as Completely Accurate. The way that it always does.

And if you do that starting from a place of distress? That will influence how your brain fills those gaps as well. It won’t necessarily be at all accurate, but your brain will oblige with something if you push hard enough.

That’s why most trauma therapists only go ‘digging’ with extreme caution, and done in a way that is fully informed about how our brains and memory works.

The thing is - you were sexually assaulted when you were a young child. A man penetrating you digitally (with his fingers), in public no less, is an extremely traumatic event for anyone. And you were an toddler.

That’s a lot. It may well explain all the subsequent dysfunction and distress you’ve been experiencing. Could there ‘be more’? Sure. But all by itself, it’s a very significant trauma, which could very easily give rise to subsequent mental health issues (including, but not limited to, ptsd).

Your life doesn’t need to be this hard. You don’t need to cope with this pervasive level of distress all the time. You deserve to heal from that.

So that’s where I’d start.

Thank you for your reply!



No, I'm not working with a trauma specialist, as I am still not 18 years old and can't go to therapist or ask about going to him, because I'm living in hyper protective household and am afraid of what my parents will say (especially knowing that there are high chance that family members abused me too).



Yes, I know that brain can fill those memory gaps quite inaccurately and this what I was scared about. I understand what you're saying. I would love to go to the therapist and do the memory work there, but unfortunately I cannot do this in the next few years and my mental state is already very bad and leads to suicidal thoughts.



I appreciate your message and I agree with you. I definitely need to heal myself from this known trauma first, before I start do more digging because actually, I was (and am) very invalidated by having just these memories of my trauma experience, and thought it wasn't bad enough for me to do full healing process yet. You motivated me to start working on validation problem and this trauma.



Thank you a lot for your kind words!

hello mimio. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

i started psychotherapy with full trauma induced amnesia. regaining those memories was harder, more confusing work than i ever want to do. one of the gnarliest branches of that hard and confusing work was, "self-gaslighting." self-gaslighting is where a memory begins with an element of truth, but i begin projecting, conjecturing, and generally over-thinking the emerging memory and end up with a memory that is more fiction than fact. untangling those gaslighted memories can be harder than hard.

over the course of the amnesia therapy, i learned to detach as far as i could from the emerging memory and let it unfold of its own accord. that detachment is far easier to say than do. it took me years to master the technique.

but that is me and every case is unique.

steadying support while you sort your own case. welcome aboard. sort freely. sort often.

Thank you for your reply!!!

Your message was really useful to me, thank you for sharing your memory recovery process and giving me advices! I definitely was self-gaslighthing myself a lot, so I will try your techniques when doing do more digging and trauma work. Thank you for giving the advice of detaching from memory, it's actually very helpful for me, because all memories that I ever retrieved in this trauma healing process was only with doing something similar to this technique, I just was not noticing it and was always forgetting how to do it.

Thank you a lot! I appreciate it!!!