Feeling guilty, shameful, horrible, disgusting etc. over things you had to do to survive

[somerandomguy]

Sitting here with you, @Sweetleaf. Honoring your bravery.

 

[littleoc]

Also I can't help but feel like I'm going to be judged or mocked or disbelieved for writing this :(

I both believe you and don't judge you at all

 

[ladee]

No judgement here either. Who could judge that kind of pain and how it has made you feel about yourself... You are heard, and believed. And honored for your honesty and courage to get it out... we are here for you. You are not alone, and not rejected or judged... sending you gentle hugs if you accept. Hugs of understanding and support.

 

[Freida]

It makes me feel so disgusting, both in a I-can't-believe-I-did-that way, and in a one-thousand-showers-couldn't-make-me-feel-clean-again sort of way. Basically, he was making me participate in some really disgusting sex acts with him.

yep. how to accept forced compliance. Currently my white whale. if you figure it out before I do let me know....

I feel really horrible about this, just, so unclean. Also I can't help but feel like I'm going to be judged or mocked or disbelieved for writing this :( I am having a really hard time hitting the post button. This post has sat for a while.

If it helps I think you are just a bit behind me in figuring all this out. Because so many of your posts could have been written by me!.

I would write posts and walk away because it was so dangerous to hit the reply button. Then I would come back and assess the risk of posting it. Would I be identifiable? Could I be found? Would someone figure out who I am? Would that get me killed? blah blah. And then I would walk away for a bit.
Then I'd come back and read it and think.....am I strong enough to handle the criticism over how I behaved and what I did?
Can I handle people saying I'm lying- that these things didn't happen. Will they follow up by telling me that I'm lying to fulfill my need for attention and I just need to get over it?
Will I be able to cope when they say that I am right - that deserved what I got for being stupid?
Or the worst one --- how will I handle them knowing the truth ---that I'm whining about crap that has no business on this site because this site is for people who have had trauma and not for a pathetic loser who should have been able to save herself and wouldn't know a trauma if it hit her in the head

Every. Single. Time.

It's easier now -- but sometimes I still wonder if people are just being nice to me and hoping I will go away and stop my whining. What derails that way of thinking is that I'm building relationships with the people here. I'm learning that they are supportive but not smoke blowers. I know they will tell me when I'm off base (though I won't always believe them!). I'm figuring out what support is and how it works. And I'm slowly realizing that .....maybe...just maybe....in a month with 6 blue moons and 38 days, on another planet.... they could be right. It might be ME that has it wrong.

 

[Mach123]

I did things and I never asked myself why. I liked doing those things and I didn't know why. It didn't matter or maybe I was too young to ask a question like that. Much much later, again in response to seemingly unrelated things, I was asking why. A lifetime of not knowing had already passed. Now I know. The therapist(s) helped me understand it all. I almost didn't make it. I think there are so many of us that don't make it to where we get to ask these questions out loud. The silence never gets broken. As terrible as it is, it's a gift. (Surviving)

 

[Hopeforlife]

Hi @Sweetleaf i am sorry you are feeling like this. I can really relate and currently trying to deal with these emotions in therapy. It’s the most confusing for me. I am at a stage that I blame myself. I kept going back for more and actually liked the attention and was curious. I felt like I was loved. It makes me feel sick! But my logical adult part is trying to understand that I was initially 4 years old and I had been conditioned to do/feel this. I knew no other way. Even if I did then I was brainwashed into feeling like this. It’s so hard to break the wall down. I’m at the start of this journey so I do t have much
Words of wisedom but please know that I admire your strength and can hear you hugs if you will accept.

 

[littleoc]

I did things and I never asked myself why. I liked doing those things and I didn't know why. It didn't matter or maybe I was too young to ask a question like that. Much much later, again in response to seemingly unrelated things, I was asking why.

This is perfectly understandable. Im glad you got around to asking why :)

 

[LuckiLee]

@Freida... "forced compliance"??? That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Love you!

 

[Sweetleaf]

Because so many of your posts could have been written by me!.

Lol, I could say the same things about your posts, though sometimes I read them and it makes me think of shit I haven't come to on my own yet, or makes me remember things I haven't thought of in a while.

I think -in general- you're way ahead of me lol.

that I'm whining about crap that has no business on this site because this site is for people who have had trauma and not for a pathetic loser who should have been able to save herself and wouldn't know a trauma if it hit her in the head

I know how you feel there.

It's easier now -- but sometimes I still wonder if people are just being nice to me

I think the same thing, so often. With in-person interactions, ones that have nothing to do with trauma, every time people are being nice to me I can't help but fear that they're doing it to f*ck with me in some way, or that it's a false niceness, etc.

On this site it's gotten easier to not fear that, or just judgement, with time. But, some things are just so f*cked up feeling, and/or just hard to talk about, that to post them is kind of like doing a "trust fall" - like where you fall backward and trust that the person behind you will catch you. At times like that I hit submit but without wanting to hit submit, just gambling that my logical side is correct, and that people won't respond negatively. Every time I do that, it gets easier to do that the next time. Sometimes, posts just remain unposted because I never bring myself to be able to hit submit.

 

[Sweetleaf]

But my logical adult part is trying to understand that I was initially 4 years old and I had been conditioned to do/feel this.

It can be hard to see that you were conditioned from a young age, to enable an adult to abuse you. My father conditioned me to be willing/able to participate in watching pornography, masturbate, and other things, which started at about 9 years old, and continued for years, until I was a teenager. But, the conditioning that enabled that to happen, started years before that.

We had no choice in what happened to us - we were too young to be able to protect ourselves from abuse. Even if our child selves chose to participate, they were manipulated into it, and they weren't equipped to deal with that kind of manipulation. We weren't equipped to deal with abuse, no child is.

 

[mumstheword]

It took me so long to get to the point where I mattered at all. Only seriously being systematically destroyed in a "frog being slowly cooked" way, I was that frog so numb and in shock already, I couldn't feel the water heating up until I was starting to cook from the inside. Except I was cold, so cold, my insides were cold for months after I got out.

Homeless and acute stress, shock and near organ failure, but still all I cared about was the children I'd left there. Knowing what he's like. I'd stayed for years with his malevolence, contempt, disgust, demanding absolute obedience and submission because of one simple threat "if you try to leave, you won't get the children. You're crazy, you'll never get them".
They mattered, I didn't. But I mattered for them.
If it wasn't for them and my friend that helped me escape; no way would I have made it.
I was crazy. Crazy, with pain. Crazy, from no sleep. Crazy, from being treated so utterly comtemptously. Crazy, I believed that I wasn't a valid person. I was only a thing for others. Crazy, that I thought I had no value.

Disgust for self is a big one. I've felt it forever, it seems. It's my state, my body, my home, my lacks, my choices-that-weren't-really-choices, for letting him and others treat me like a not-person. A thing for their hate and their use.
Now I'm trying to feel like a person who matters but it's hard to feel something your not used to feeling. Shame and self disgust are much easier to feel, the neural route is much more established.
Damn.:(:nailbiting::sorry::notworthy::barefoot::hungry::hungover::coffee::eek::arghh;:sick::inpain::tdown::locktopic::cry:

 

[Ronin]

how to accept forced compliance. Currently my white whale.

I try to go with, where that was remotely close to what one would like to achieve without those conditions? As in, where what I did did not bring a bigger f*ckup for other people. Where it meant they were less hurt, not dead in uglier ways, less desperate, or hell, more desperate but less hurt.

*
(As in, thread I plan to come back to. I am not able to make a more detailed post on this topic in one piece, think it is something I been whining about since I came here.)