Sexual Assault Feeling Like A Liar After Sexual Abuse. Could Use Some Advice/insight

[Cursejar]

Sorry if this post is really long. I feel like I was sexually abused but I have a hard time talking about it to anyone because when I do, I feel like I'm an attention seeking liar. It's a weird feeling because if I were attention seeking I would I've told a ton of people already so I know my own thoughts are contradictory. I can count the number of people I have told on my hand.

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Between the ages of 13 and 17 I dated this guy who was the same age as me. We started having sex at 14 and were both really innocent and inexperienced. As time went on he started to expect me to have sex with him all the time like at least every other time I saw him. and guilt me into it or say it was ruining our relationship that we didn't have enough sex. I had really low self esteem and almost no friends so the idea of us breaking up was like the worst thing ever to me so I just did it even though I didn't want to. Other times he'd want me to get high with him even though it really scared me, and guilted me by saying it wasn't fun if I didn't. Then he would want to have sex and I would be so high I felt like I couldn't say no because my head was in such a weird place and it was just easier to do it. It wasn't always that way though, sometimes I did actually want to have sex. And I loved him. So it makes it all very confusing. But then there was a time I can remember that I laid on my stomach and cried while he had sex with me because it hurt and I didn't want to and that might have happened more than once. Or times when I didn't want to have sex but felt like it wasn't really a choice so I just did other non penetration things that I didn't want to do and just tried hard to make it end as quickly as possible. And it would make me gag and make my mouth and neck hurt and I didn't like doing it. I also remember a lot of times I got so high that all I could do was panic and tell myself over and over that it only lasts 2 hours and then I will be ok, and it's honestly hard to remember a lot of what happened because we were high so much but I do know he like to have sex while high because he said it felt better, so I know it happened. And I know that if I was that high I wouldn't have been able to consent especially as a teenager.
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I'm 21 now and for the first time in my entire life I feel like I have a normal sex life. Sometimes I feel like that whole thing was awful and sometimes I feel like I was nothing but a minor inconvenience that I blew out of proportion. I didn't consider it sexual abuse until I turned 18 and got really into feminism. Which is I think what also makes me feel that way. Right after I broke up with him I slept with 2 other shitty dudes, one who I actually knew raped a person before, actually come to think of it both had been accused of rape. and basically just willingly let them use me for sex for a short while. I did basically the same thing of compulsively saying yes to them that I did with my boyfriend, but for some reason I don't really consider sleeping with them traumatic the way I do about my ex, even though I did the same thing. I feel like I just became emotionless about sex and didn't care if it hurt me or not and enjoyed it because I was doing it for the other person. I also feel like a liar because I didn't start to show ptsd symptoms until I was 19 ish, and learned about consent. I realized I physically couldn't say no to people after I learned about consent. And after an experience of this one creepy guy kissing me at a friends party and being scared but not being able to say no to him. I started having panic attacks only after I realized my yes felt meaningless to me and that I felt physically unable to say no. Then I would have panic attacks because I would tell my then boyfriend ahead of time I wanted him to stop trying to initiate sex and let me be the one to do it but he would keep doing it. I also feel like a liar because I feel guilty for sleeping with a guy who raped my friend. (Same guy as above) and I feel like a liar because I only started therapy because I found out my other friend got sexually assulted (not by the same guy) and it made me FREAK OUT (obviously not to her but alone, she doesn't know this happened) mostly because the situation was too similar. A yes that was actually a no. I feel the need to constantly compare my experience to that of others. I feel very little compassion for myself. however It's not like the only times I ever care about it are when I find out about others. There have been a ton of times I've cried to my sexual partners (only 2) and told them about this stuff or stopped sex because of it or just thought about it when I was alone. But I still feel like a liar and like a bad person. I feel like I'm just overly sexual and gross or dumb for not saying no. I feel like my emotions are fake but I also can't stop feeling them. At the same time though I feel like I wouldn't be the way I was sexually for no reason. Like I couldn't have sex for a long time because my mental state wouldn't let me get turned on. And I hated men for a long time then I wanted to be a man because I hated my body. I feel like I can never tell any of my friends who I know have been sexually assulted because I feel like they will immediately say I am a liar and that what happened to me is nothing like what happened to them. I had that issue with my therapist as well. How do I separate my experiences as my own and not comepare or judge them? How do I know if my symptoms are induced and not real? Does anyone else feel this way? I feel like rape and sex have become so blurred to me because of this, I've had so many grey area experiences and a few straight up this is definitely sexual abuse experiences, all with the guy I lost my virginity to, who I also had enjoyable(?) sex with at points. Also have had some experiences from this person that are definelty sexual abuse that I enjoyed parts of in the middle. Any advice or commiseration is appreciated, though I hope you never have to feel this way. Thanks

 

[Lucycat]

Hi @Cursejar and welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you had a tough time in your teenage years. I don't get the impression that your parents taught you healthy boundaries or encouraged you to have more respect and care for yourself.

I think you would do well to find a therapist to talk all this through with. In my opinion the sexual abuse is only the tip of the iceberg for you. I suspect there is far more to your story than that and unravelling it in a safe environment would be a way forward. It is not something that friends and family can help with.Nobody who has not experienced sexual abuse can really understand what you are going through, and how it completely demeans and undermines your own self worth.

The sense of blame and shame are hard to deal with, and exploring these safely can help you live with your past rather than getting stuck in your past.

 

[Kintsugi]

Hi, Cursejar. I agree with Lucy that you likely have something else going on in your early development that might have caused you to have difficulty building and enforcing boundaries.

What you experienced sounds like coerced consent and a general lack of boundaries and self-respect. I don't say this censoriously. Coerced consent is a bitch of a problem when it comes to identifying sexual assault. Here's an article from Emory University that may help you: Consent vs. Coercion

By the way, we don't use trigger warnings in this community. You can read more about our policies here: Community Constitution | My PTSD Forum

 

[Cursejar]

Hi @Cursejar and welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you had a tough time in your t...

Thanks for your reply, I think you're right, I did have a lot of issues with my dad as a kid threatening me and putting me down and screaming etc. I am not sure how much of my current issues are because of that and how many are because of my ex. It might have been better if I were able to talk to my parents about it.
I don't know if I could say I feel shame about it but I do feel like I take all the responsibility for it. I mostly just feel wore down and exhausted by it at this point in time, I feel like all the stuff that happened when I was a teen, just become an integrated part of my personality or something that I can't pick out as like a I learned this from this place kinda thing, or like this specific thing happened to me and made me feel this way. It feels like it's crept into everything and is ruining my life by making me hate myself.

I want to see a therapist but I feel like I can't trust anyone and like they think all my problems are stupid, I've had this problem since I was 13 and saw a social worker. I have seen a trauma therapist but it was the kind of person where they don't ask the details of what happened, and I think to me the details matter and I need to talk about them. I guess it just feels like nothing ever happened that was "bad enough"

 

[Abigail7]

Feminism is fraught with its own set of issues. Yes, the feminist movement has done a lot for women's rights, but feminists are humans and as such aren't perfect. Feminist thought affected my beliefs greatly when I was younger. Once I was very pro-feminist and then I swung the other way and was very anti-feminist (when I felt they'd done nothing but feed me lies to further their agenda), and it wasn't until recently that I was able to have a more balanced view of feminism.

I encourage you to listen to yourself and not so much to the feminists. What do you feel? What do you think? It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks or feels, it only matters what you think and feel. Two women can have the exact same situation, and interpret the situation in very different ways. And it's ok! What matters is that you get to a place of acceptance and healing.

 

[James McGregor]

for me your experiences dont sound abusive - bad choices yes, and maybe as others have said there is earlier experiences leading to that - but the events themselves i dont think can be called abuse. Simply because you regret certain things, and wished things had been different. Its an important distinction i think because moving forward its a world of difference dealing with past abuse or bad decisions

 

[Cursejar]

for me your experiences dont sound abusive - bad choices yes, and maybe as others have said ther...

I don't believe these are just bad choices on my part, guilting and repeatedly pressuring someone into sex knowing that they don't want it is emotional and sexual abuse. And pressuring someone all the time, every time you're with them, and not doing or thinking about anything else until it happens really wears a person down. The fact that I relented is due to self esteem issues and being afraid of abandonment, not because I decided I was actually ok with the sex. Regardless of my own issues that made it easier for him to get what he wanted, he still refused to take my initial no for an answer every time, and willingness to participate in a sexual act is not something that's debatable.

I posted this looking for others who had similar feelings of being a fraud or feeling like a liar. Which I have because no one believes a boyfriend can sexually abuse his girlfriend. And because of the fact that coercion makes a no into a false yes. While I may point out reasons I feel like a fraud I'm not looking for anyone to debate the legitimacy of my experience or tell me it was my own bad decisions. I'm looking for advice on accepting my experiences for what they were so I can move past them.

 

[joeylittle]

@Cursejar - I'd really encourage you to look back farther into how some of the thought patterns you have were formed in adolescence( as is being suggested), and then see how you relate to the events with the sexual pressuring.

It's very difficult to know whether he was being abusive, assaultive, or incredibly selfish.

Putting the label on it - any label - isn't going to change the fact that it was super-shitty for you to go through, and you have been left feeling really bad. That's true no matter what.

In trauma work, it's often advised to begin at the real beginning of the things that happened. Go back to that stuff. Put the boyfriend stuff in a box, to take out later. Don't worry whether it's 'enough'. Right now, it's a problem. So, it's enough. You deserve to live a life in the present, one that is not overshadowed by the past. We all do. Getting there is work, but doable work.

 

[Suzetig]

I posted this looking for others who had similar feelings of being a fraud or feeling like a liar. Which I have because no one believes a boyfriend can sexually abuse his girlfriend.

That's simply not true - most people around here would recognise sexual abuse exists in some partner relationships. I suspect your feelings of being a liar come from somewhere else, possibly childhood given your reference to how you were parented.

When you post as you have done, you'll attract replies from a range of viewpoints - anything from "that was awful, the most horrific abuse of you - hang the bastard" to "you made some shitty choices". All of those views are valid, though they may not be what you hope to hear.

The thing is that no one was there, so no one can really say whether it was abusive, insensitive or regretful and you clearly have your own views on it. The difficulty with that is that our own view can be distorted by others opinions, by what we are able to cope with, what want to believe or by what we remember now and how we understand that in a wider context. I don't think it's a surprised that you say PTSD symptoms happened after you learned about consent - sometimes when we go through a process of learning that something that didn't feel ok might not have been ok we start to either notice signs or symptoms that have always been there that now feel significant or that we subconsciously think "something bad happened, I should have symptoms" and our body responds by displaying symptoms - that doesn't mean that what you're feeling isn't real, I'm not saying that at all - just that we can easily think ourselves into having physical and emotional reactions. It's the same process that makes us scratch when someone else has a rash.

That's why self diagnosis of mental health issues isn't a good idea and why labelling our experiences as abusive or not may be less empowering than accepting that you're uncomfortable with what happened. It can also be the case that one thing (sexual abuse) is easier to acknowledge and cope with than another (physical abuse or neglect) so we focus our attention on that rather than deal with what sits underneath, because that's too scary. I know for me it's been easier to look at sexual exploitation than neglect because the exploitation feels more PTSD worthy, but it's the neglect that truly f*cked me up.

In your shoes I'd take the advice to go and look at what's fuelling the fire here, the thing that stopped you being able to say no and set healthy boundaries in your relationship. in doing that you'll get to any issues around consent (or lack thereof) in your partner relationship. Your therapist will be able to assess and diagnose PTSD too, if you've not already been formally diagnosed.

 

[Suzetig]

Also have had some experiences from this person that are definelty sexual abuse that I enjoyed parts of in the middle.

I wanted to address this part too - physically enjoying the sexual feelings you have during an act doesn't change the abusiveness of the situation. Enjoying parts of all of it doesn't mean you wanted it, it just means that your body responded sexually to touch that was sexual. Which is exactly what your body is designed to do.

 

[WishfulThinking123]

@Cursejar I just wanted to say that I am sorry you went through that at such a young age. I can really relate to parts of your story. My sexual issues are probably one of the biggest things I need to work on. I have had pretty negative sexual experiences from the time I lost my virginity at 18 up through my abusive marriage which included sexual abuse. I did become very promiscuous back in college and felt like I could never say no because, when I did they never listened anyways. Sex for as long as I can remember was only about pleasing the guy and I totally relate with the not caring if it hurts or what is done to me. After a while it does get exhausting saying "no" and not being listened to. I feel like for a variety of reasons I do not have good sexual boundaries and I am not sure what are "normal requests." I am still trying to sort all of that out. I can definitely relate with not feeling like it was "bad enough" or "there's no sexual abuse in a relationship or marriage" but, there certainly can be. I feel like as a female who is obviously weaker than most guys my "no" should be enough but sadly it never is... they just keep pushing or sometimes use physical force until I succumb to their wishes. I have never had any emotional connection to sex, it has just always been something I need to do for the guy, it became this thing to where I didn't even know I could say no. It got to a point where I would do anything that was asked of me and just "disassociate" to get through it. Sometimes I feel like sex is just all I am good for, my only purpose in life. Negative sexual experiences can definitely change your perspective on a lot of things as well as your actions. I hope my words just help you realize that you are not the only one who feels this way.

 

[Cursejar]

@Cursejar I just wanted to say that I am sorry you went through that at s...

I'm so sorry you had to experience that, I can relate to a lot of the things you've said as well. I have never had much of an emotional connection with sex either and honestly didn't even feel aroused by the act of sex for the longest time. I just had fetishes of non genetal related things. I have also had many experiences of dissacociating and preforming a sex act almost automatically. It's a scary feeling because it actually felt that I wasn't in control of myself or the situation. Once I started being intimate with anyone I would actomatically take it all the way and either go down on them or have sex with them. Have you found anything that helps? Recently I have had a pretty good physical relationship with my boyfriend and it's gotten that way by slowly building up and practicing saying no to him in a safe environment (because he knows about all this stuff and he knows how it makes me feel) so I told him only let me initiate sex and if I say stop we just immediately stop. That's helped me get used to actually being able to tell wether I do or don't want sex and acting accordingly. Thanks for sharing your experience with me