Sexual Assault My Abuser Had Fetishes

[Leona]

One of the things he did to me after giving me drugs to take (after a while I stopped fighting it) was to get me to undress, then he'd pick out a pair of panties that he liked. He'd insert sex toys into me and make me wear the panties. He'd then tell me to get dressed and he'd take me out to the grocery store like that. All doped up, walking around with a dildo or some other object inside me. It was humiliating, but I was so drugged up, I was not in touch with it at the time. I think of it now and I want to kill him in the most painful manner possible.
I've had panic attacks in grocery stores my whole life. It was only about two years ago that I realized the root of it.
How do you ever get over the shame of having been used like a piece of meat like this? How do you ever stop feeling angry and wanting to kill him? When I think about how this public humiliation has added to my social anxiety, my fear of people, and the feelings I've always had of being looked at or laughed at, it all makes sense, but it doesn't make the feelings stop.

 

[Nyx]

How do you ever get over the shame of having been used like a piece of meat like this?

I will refer to someone else's post here, because I think the quote she used answers this question perfectly. It's the last post, number 45.
[DLMURL]http://sexabuse.ptsdforum.org/forum/threads/my-journey-through-hurt.116/page-3[/DLMURL]Link Removed

When I think about how this public humiliation has added to my social anxiety, my fear of people, and the feelings I've always had of being looked at or laughed at, it all makes sense, but it doesn't make the feelings stop.

Unfortunately, it doesn't. You have to work at the feelings to make them go away. Our perception of reality and events has been altered following the abuse(s) and for that we have to work. It's not easy, there's no quick fixes, but it does get better if we put ourselves into it and give it our best shot. Hang in there!

 

[cherryblossom]

Leona, I'm so sorry he did those things to you.

Shame, guilt and anger are all closely linked when we believe that certain rules have been violated. Anger, because of the damage and hurt caused by the violation. And shame and guilt because we somehow feel to blame for that violation.

We feel guilt or shame because we think we have done something wrong. We think we should have been able to stop it from happening. Feelings of shame happen when we percieve that we have done something wrong. If we think we have done something wrong, we assume that we are somehow flawed, bad or inadequate. Secretiveness then surrounds the shame. We assume others will see us as flawed, bad, or inadequate, so we keep the violation a secret. Secrets then continue to be destructive, and destroy how we see ourselves, allowing all the negatives to take over. "I am bad", "I am rotten", I am flawed".

CBT can help enourmously to overcome these feelings. If you have a therapist ask them about CBT in regards to shame and guilt and anger. If you don't have a therapist, there are a lot of good books on CBT which can guide you through CBT exercises to help you change how you think about things.

Overcoming guilt and shame is a huge and difficult step. I see so many members here struggling with exactly that. We live in a society where generally sex is not talked about. Sex and certainly sexual assault are a taboo subject. So there is no wonder, if we are sexually abused, we do not talk about it. We naturally feel shame and guilt. And that is why this forum exists. We are all survivors or we support someone who is a survivor, so we understand. This is a safe place to 'break the silence' and discuss this subject that is generally taboo in day to day conversation.

Placing any (and all) blame, correctly with the abuser, assessing your own actions and self-forgivness, and speaking out are all positive ways forward.

 

[brokenchild]

My abusers did similar things and some of the abuser happened in the employee only section of stores. Even now I get really uncomfortable having to go back in that area to use the bathroom or something. I wish I knew what to tell you to make it easier but I just don't know.

 

[Leona]

It means a lot to be able to write this stuff out and know that you all here understand what it's done to me. Done to all of us. I have a therapist, and I don't think I've heard the term CBT. Maybe we've been discussing it,but the term doesn't sound familiar. Can anyone recommend any books on the subject?
One thing that really makes me mad is that this abuser (and his family...they ALL abused me in different ways) has affected me for the rest of my life. His father started showing me pornography when I was 14. I'd never seen it before. I had one of those "frozen solid" experiences when I first saw a porno flick. I felt like my life was in danger, and I just froze. For the next few years, I was blasted with so much porn, that it has stayed in my mind forever. I get flashes of pornography just out of nowhere. When I see a couple in a restaurant or just walking and holding hands, my mind pictures him violating her in the most obscene manner possible. I can't control it. I'm used to it, but I feel like it's MY dirty mind working, even though I know it's from the trauma of all that porn. They even showed me gay porn - men on men. I was just a kid! His stepmother used to wear just a nightgown with nothing underneath and expose herself to me. It was such a disgusting innappropriate environment, and these people violated me for six years. I'll never get those years back, and I'll never be able to erase it and have a normal, loving sexual development like some lucky people get to have.

 

[Leona]

My abusers did similar things and some of the abuser happened in the employee only section of stores. Even now I get really uncomfortable having to go back in that area to use the bathroom or something. I wish I knew what to tell you to make it easier but I just don't know.

I just had to say, I LOVE the picture of your cat (is that your cat?) What a beautiful Siamese. I love cats. I have three!
I can't go grocery shopping without some sort of physical symptom cropping up. Usually it's just a heavy feeling, like I can't wait to get out of there, but sometimes I get headaches and stomach cramps. It sucks, let's face it.

 

[Leona]

"The Somatic narcissist and the psychopath use their partners' bodies to masturbate with and their sexual conquests serve merely to prop up their wavering self-confidence (somatic narcissist) or to satisfy a physiological need (psychopath). The somatic narcissist and psychopath have no sexual playmates - only sexual playthings. Having conquered the target, they discard it, withdraw and move on heartlessly."

I think this is the quote that Nyx was referring to. It is dead-on. It's what I was subjected to. He physically and mentally tormented me into taking drugs (usually a half dozen Valium or so), then when I was all dopey, he would start his session. He'd do weird things like stuff lingerie into my vagina to see how much room there was in there. I felt like he wanted my body to be "his body"....literally. When I was exceptionally stoned, and he thought I wouldn't remember the events, he'd dress up in bras and nightgowns and pretend he was another girl with me. It makes me so sick and repulsed to remember this. I wish I could perform an exorcism on my brain and just remove it....it's so vile and disgusting to me. I actually started looking into electric shock therapy to see if it's been used for ptsd. It's living with these memories that I find so unbearable. I actually physically shudder when I have one. The only thing I feel would come close to releasing my disgust and anger would be to have a big, BIG knife, and take it to him.....just dice him up like an animal in a butcher shop. I know that's violent, but that's how I feel.

 

[Nyx]

CBT means Cognitive Beahvioral Therapy. It has been proven to be most effective in PTSD. And one component of it is Exposure therapy, which I think would solve your problem with the memories. Because - to put it plain - it exposes the brain to the things that it concieves as negative until the brain changes its response.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy

I'll try to find some other links I used to shed light on these terms when I first read them and I'll come back to this thread.

It will get better, therapy is advanced nowadays and can help with a lot of things. Sad part is it won't be easy. But it will help you get rid of the things that torment you now.

 

[Leona]

Thanks....I actually did figure out what CBT meant! That's what I'm doing in therapy. We've just started a little exposure therapy, but it's slow going. Carol, my therapist says it's actually possible to bring the memories up, and using these techniques, get your brain to store them differently so they don't bring up all the feelings and fight/flight response with them. I'm a little doubtful it will work, but I hope it can get better.

 

[brokenchild]

Yes, that's one of my cats. She's getting rather old now though :(

 

[cherryblossom]

The only thing I feel would come close to releasing my disgust and anger would be to have a big, BIG knife, and take it to him.....just dice him up like an animal in a butcher shop. I know that's violent, but that's how I feel.

I don't think it's wrong to feel that anger Leona. I actually think it's very healthy. So many survivors turn their anger on themselves, and hurt themselves. But your anger is well placed, and directed at the right person. Hopefully therapy will help you to reduce the ammount of negative emotion over those images in your brain. You are right, what he did to you is vile, and they won't be completely removed from your brain, but hopefully those images will become less traumatic, so that you don't feel quite so bad when the images pop into your head. Electric shock therapy sounds quite scary to me. Take care
CB

 

[WonderingWhy]

Leona,
I also say that it IS good that your anger is against your offender. That is where all of your anger should be. I know I should be angry, but I have not been angry at all. I think I am still stuck with guilt and shame and possibly angeragainst me. The closest I have come towards my offender is fear and disgust. I know I should be angry with him, but so far I have not. I think your anger is great!