Researching Subtypes And Typologies Of Sex Offenders

[seekingstability]

My Therapist has given me a website to look through, it's the Centre for Offender Management. She said after our conversation last week that my memories/recall of the events fit more within the description of rape than that of sexual abuse. When she said that, I felt like I had a 'lightbulb' moment. I'm not sure of the difference, but describing what happened as 'sexual abuse' has never felt accurate. I'm not downplaying 'sexual abuse', but in relation to my experience, that 'label doesn't feel enough.

And for the first time, the idea that I'm not to blame is becoming more realistic.

When she first started talking about researching offender behaviour - I started getting angry with her 'she wants me to feel SORRY for him? What the actual? But the more I listened - the more sense it made - this has never been about me, it's always been about him. Therefore, it was not because I am inherently bad - he was.

I'm finding the website incredibly challenging to look at/read through, I'm feeling angry and sad and like I wish he was still alive so I could kill him myself.

Rather than ruminating on 'why'. Why did he hate me so much? Why is he so angry? What am I doing wrong/what was I doing wrong? My thoughts have turned to trying to see him for who he actually was - a monster. A sick monster.

Has anyone else gone down this path? I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Kefira]

I have a sort of hobby of studying behavior. Everything from normal social behavior, which started so I could take steps to feel less socially incompetent, to that of psychopaths and abusers,which started so I could answer the "why" question.

What I learned is that there isn't really an answer to why. But what I have learned does mean I understand those who attacked me a bit better, and am able to divide the different types of abusers I've encountered. That was the most helpful thing for me personally I think. I've encountered straight up psychopaths with no remorse. I've also encountered decent people with very poor conditioning who weren't malicious but honestly didn't understand their actions. Painting the two with the same brush in my head was confusing and limited me. But I think a lot of that is that I'm intellectual and I tend to need to understand things (at least as well as I can) to work through them.

It made them less of an puzzle, less of a monster in the shadows to me. The problem is the behavior is human. Understanding that all of that falls on the spectrum of human behavior due either to biology or due to development... In a way it made them less scary I guess. They're still monsters, sure, but they're human and in a lot if ways highly predictable. Gives some twisted comfort I guess- better the devil you know.

 

[Weemie]

i spent a long, long time learning as much as i could about offenders. it's obsessive and unhealthy for me... so i stay away from places like that.

 

[Friday]

Yep. Absolutely. People fascinate me.