Intrusive (sexual) Thoughts

[Upside Down Eagle]

Well, here it goes. I never mentioned this to anyone, not even my shrink in the five years that I've had theraphy with her. I guess we never spoke about it because I was in continuous denial about what's happening in my head sometimes.

I'm twenty five now. I have a history of physical abuse, throughout my entire childhood and part of adolescence (roughly 14 years of crap). But I was never molested sexually -at least not that I recall. But when my PTSD kicked in I had recurring nightmares about my dad who was chasing me in order to rape me.

As I recall it he never laid hands on me that way. It was my mom who used to beat me around. She did always beat me in this very degrading manner where I had to drop my pants and my underpants and she would proceed to beat me so hard my butt would turn out blue and violet and I couldn't sit down for days (... trying really hard not to insert a million swearwords at her here).

It was up to my dad to take care of me. I have this one very clear memory. He used to have to shower me when I was a kid. I remembering him trying to shower me and I was recoiling, and getting as far away in the shower cabinet from him as I could possibly be and covering my body with my hands.

Back then in that moment I was just sure he'd violate me sexually. Strangely enough I can't recall any of the other times he showered me, but I don't think my dad would have done such a thing to me. Even so, I am questioning it. I just don't understand how all these weird thoughts enter my head.

I still have intrusive "imaginings" of him trying to sexually harass me. When I have them I get incredibly tense and I can't relax. Also when the PTSD kicked in I used to feel raped a lot of times. Like I felt sick and wanted to vomit, I felt like someone elses energy had been forced into my body.

Whenever I get a anxiety attack around a man I always feel convinced that they'll rape me. Rationally I know that they will not, but it feels like their "energy" wants to rape me and really enjoys forcing me down, too. Do any of you here have any suggestions as to why I am thinking in this way...?

 

[Lost Pup]

Hi Radise.

I hope you are able to speak with your therapist about this. It's just the kind of thing we have to feel comfortable being open about to heal, in my experience.

It seems entirely possible this scenario carries emotional weight for you for reasons that have nothing to do with an actual instance of sexual abuse. Certainly you are describing feeling very afraid and very powerless and this seems to come up with men, now.

That said, it does remind me a bit of my own experience. I was sexually assaulted by my own father when I was four years old and later when I was seven. I always remembered this but did dissociate from it a lot. So, it could be something like that too.

It sounds like you don't really know what is going on. I just want to cast my own vote, borne of personal experience, for finding a therapist with whom you can speak of this openly. Also, if possible, for trying to stay in the feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity about what happened. That can be really helpful.

I've known others who jump to fixed narratives of their experiences much too quickly, because they cannot tolerate staying in the discomfort of not knowing exactly what happened to them. Sometimes those narratives later prove erroneous and realizing as much can be very painful.

Sending you care and support, LP

 

[The Albatross]

Hard to say if it's a literal fear based on reality, or a phobia type thing, or a a heightened sense of fight/flight/flee/freeze/faint. The reaction so many of us get when we trigger or experience when we feel threatened.
I'm with Lost Pup though, definitely worth running by the therapist.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Thanks for your reactions! I'm not seeing a therapist right now :) But I'll be starting EMDR soon (forgot to call my doc again...! Was going to get an appointment so he can redirect me...). Maybe I can discuss this sort of thing with the EMDR therapist..?

 

[The Albatross]

I have not had access to EMDR so I don't really know. But I'd consider it if the difficulty that my reaction causes is ramping up the stress, anxiety level or affecting my day to day relational or working day. Maybe some can come forward about EMDR experiences. I don't really know how that goes.

I do know that (speaking for myself) - in the absence of a direct memory (many blanks in my life time), I tend to focus less on looking for another trauma, and focus more on the behavior and what I have to do to try to correct it. Sometimes a memory may come through... most of the time not. It doesn't really matter very much for me. What's one more trauma or so in a whole pile??? :hug: Good luck gal.

 

[Lost Pup]

in the absence of a direct memory (many blanks in my life time), I tend to focus less on looking for another trauma, and focus more on the behavior and what I have to do to try to correct it.

That's very, very sage advice.....

 

[maddog]

Totally agree that digging for traumas, for the sake of finding them or of finding out if they're there, is a really bad idea - very unnecessarily traumatising, potentially very misleading and really just a recipe for creating additional distress and confusion where it needn't exist.

I am a firm believer that our brains have an uncanny knack of filtering in and out that which needs processing and dealing with, and that which doesn't. An intrusive or troublesome emotion, image, sensation or thought is usually traceable back to an unprocessed memory, but sometimes we know the origin and the relevant memory, and sometimes we don't, and it may or may not turn out to be what we imagine it to be.

That's one of the things I do love about EMDR. You can focus on whatever the problematic symptom is for you, be it an intrusive image, an emotion or reaction to certain stimuli, a body sensation, or any other troubling symptom. The EMDR process allows your brain to trace back to the problematic cause of that symptom, and to work through its significance in a way that helps that memory to be processed and the troublesome symptom to abate in time in line with that processing.

This is an extraordinarily brief and simplistic synopsis of EMDR from my experience, but one of its key strengths is that it doesn't constitute digging for what's not there, or hashing over detail of what is there for the sake of it, but allows the brain to target only those aspects of memory that really do require the processing - maximum positive impact for minimum traumatic re-experiencing in my opinion.

Obviously it's not for everyone - no therapy is, and the only way to know if it's right is to read and research, talk to a qualified professional about what you're hoping to achieve with the EMDR and then, ultimately, to give it a go. But I must admit that EMDR did spring to mind upon reading your original post, even before reading that you were in line to start it.

Maddog

 

[Anna]

Yes. I do have intrusive sexual thoughts. I think about sex maybe 7 times an hour. It is really annoying. I have managed to learn how to deal with it over the years though. I thought it was only men who thought about it this much but this seems not to be the case.

I also noticed as well just because I think about sex, does not mean I want to have sex which I find totally bizarre.

I also have sexual dreams and have had orgasms in my sleep. I find them to actually be even better than in real life. Really bizarre.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Thanks everyone for their reactions, they were really helpful :) I agree that it won't be any good to go looking for trauma's. After reading everybody's response I'm delighted that these thoughts don't necessarily have to be connected to any real sexual abuse, because I don't recall it ever happening and I don't think it did! Which makes me lucky in a way, I guess...

Yesterday I was reading an article online about abused children who develop PTSD, it said "At its core, any type of abuse of children constitutes exploitation of the child's dependence on and attachment to the parent". I think this explains a lot of the creepy thoughts. I felt used. Actually I felt so used I wanted to puke my guts out. Maybe abuse and sexual abuse are not that far apart emotionally, I don't mean to offend anyone who did go through the sexual abuse, I can imagine its absolutely horrifying.

My dad used to tell me I was supossed to be thankful for everything he did for me (not that much). He was always intruding in my private space. He ripped the blankets off of me while I was in bed one time and yelled at me that I was a drug addict (at that point in my life I had never even seen drugs). I felt I was safe nowhere, and I also felt that he was telling me to be submissive to him as he was the "head of the household", being a man and such.

I'm now trying to get rid of those thoughts by focusing on the NOW. By being aware that I'm out of that situation. By thinking about other stuff. I'll be discussing it with my therapist anyhow, thanks for encouraging me to do so.

Anna: my sexual thoughts (at least these kind) are always negative and make me not want to have anything to do with it, since it's related to family and a position where I am cowed into submission. I'm not sure where your thoughts are coming from. I don't think it's only men who think about this frequently, that seems to be a much repeated stereotype...

 

[Abstract]

Radise, you might want to look at covert sexual abuse. It may not be a helpful term for some but really it describes different aspects of boundary violations that feel invasive even though not overtly sexual.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Wow, abstract, I read some about that and it certainly caused a shitstorm of memories coming back to me! But don't worry, it isn't bad. I never even knew about this emotional incest thing, but.... I can pretty much connect with the information I found about it in web articles.

It could have been much worse, but now I finally understand the creepy thoughts. Which makes it a whole deal better because I thought it was me, maybe I was thinking these things because I'm indeed sick and twisted like my mother used to suggest. A sick person that actually deserved a physically demeaning treatment because "I liked it" (her exact words).

I'm not through with this yet but this new info is very valuable to me... sometimes I feel like a PTSD -ridden psyche is like a mirror, that is telling us who we really are (but that image is based on the wrong experiences and impressions) and then we end up believing what this mirror tells us. By making fissures in the mirror (through new information like this) we can end up breaking it and discover the truth about ourselves...

 

[Abstract]

I think there are always very reasons for how we feel Radise. I am glad it helped. Boundaries and violations vary a lot in type I think especially when we are children and grow with them.