Unless you helped put your own abusers in jail,
Nope, sure didn't. Didn't even bring a civial suit with my therapist's urging (or his want I guess) after the Statue of Limitations was up. So they lived until they died free of any wrong doing. As did the "family".
I'm guessing standing up and demanding this be stopped is probably a new and scary experience...?
Yep, very new and MUCH scarier then I'd imagine it would be.
Something spun me as I have been sleeping all day. I don't think it was just the reporting it but rather the entire thing.
I'm not sure but yep, I feel like I have the flu. Which is rather normal for very emotional things. I have a severe physical reaction.
I'm SO PROUD of you for doing it!!!!!
Thank you! You don't have to know me for those words to mean the world to me! :hug:
and correct me if I'm mistaken but I'm thinking THAT is the goal of therapy and living a more emotionally stabilized life. Dealing with triggers in a positive, more deliberate, less emotionally regressive way. I see choosing/being able to hold your shit together long enough to report as a huge step in your fight to not only make it through another day but perhaps even toward a new self-narrative of experiencing life as a less vulnerable person.
I think my therapist would agree. As before, I would not just cut and punish, and sleep all day, but I would have sweept it under the rug and pretend I didn't see it but wish I could do something to stop it. Then punish for not being able to do anything about it...and around and around it goes.
So, stopping the spinning, mid-f*cked up, and googling "reporting child porn" and then fight the scariness of that (though I left most of the form blank, still) and then talk on here about it when all I wanted to do was pretend I didn't see it and get more f*cked up...and yeah.
Anyway, I think my therapist would agree that, though I relaspsed and do what I always did, I still did something different here. And I suppose that counts for something huh?
Is there somebody you trust and respect that you'd be willing to allow to get your computer history through email?
I don't have a computer, I have a phone. And nope.
Is there a special sexual abuse survivor program anywhere near you!??
Uh huh. My therapist and I tried that and I emailed one, it didn't work out. That was before this site but still. Not so sure I could take that large leep ahead. People terrify the f*ck out of me. And so until or unless I can get my dog that well trained, or they allowed for me to bring him before he was that well trained (my dog at the moment is my service dog in training) then, I don't see that happening.
My therapist and I spent damn near a year trying to find me support before we found this site. It is why I don't agree with the insurence's therapist saying that I can seek community supports (and neither does my therapist). I just don't see that happening yet. Would be great but I don't see me taking that leap without the assitance of my (or a service) dog.
Also, have you looked into DBT or EMDR therapy?
I have the DBT workbook. Same thing with this class as above. And my therapist is EMDR trained and experienced. We did it a while back, I wasn't ready, it went badly. This was well before this site. So now he thinks I am more ready for it now and wants to return to it. We just haven't yet.
@Megyn Long time no see! :hug:
I came to the conclusion only last night that perhaps (I know my body reacted normally to stimulation) I felt the "pleasurable" (it wasn't mentally or emotionally) part stronger because it was better than feeling pain? So good at compartmentalizing and then focusing on a specific emotion, I imagine we do that with physical sensations too? Idk.
I don't know either. I know I compartmentalize too well. I know I do it in order to work. I do it in therapy. I am numb when I do and I know why I compartmentalize.
I used to be able to narrow and zero in on an emotion or a set of emotions to then draw or paint them out. I have done that since I was 10. All art pre '99 was distoryed by them though.
I know why I have that issue with porn and it left (or the urge to view porn) when I stopped the rituals so I'm like cool. Two birds one stone?
And I didn't view porn each time I got high. I was just high each time I did the rituals. I guess. I don't know, it's confusing.
And it's not even about keeping me accountable as I honestly don't care at that time. See my history that I went to view porn. Ok, I don't care. So someone having browsing history, I can't see that helping.
Why is huge in my world. Why did I have the urge to get f*cked up and cut and go porn surfing. That is what fixes things for me. For many, its of will power but for me its the why and fixing that and as a byproduct of fixing that I then don't need to get high and browse porn and cut and all of that.
So why did I have the urge to cut (as that came first) and then to get high? Will be a question I can see my therapist asking on Friday.
He knows why though as we have spoken about it in the last few sessions. But knowing him, he will ask anyway.
Anyway, going back to compartmentaling
@Megyn, are you saying that you compartmentalized the physical feeling back then and thus "enjoyed it" or are you saying today?
I know that the body will have a reaction but for me personally, in the mist of literal torture was also a lot of mind games and "kindness" where I am still convinced today, at the age of 35, that my step dad was my first love at the age of 12. So the fact that I still describe him as such tells me that back then I had such a "mind-f*ck" going on that a few things happened; I translate the torture as love so today I need that same level of pain and torture to enjoy sex. I also view that as love and thus seek it when what I am after is to feel loved. And keeps me stuck in a never ending circle like you described of seeking it.
But, in my opinion, feeling pleasure back then didn't do that. Compartmentaling it doesn't do that. The mind games during it and having kindness in the mist of torture, does it.
Not to say the pleasure during rape or sexual assult isn't confusing as it is. But the "love" in the middle of torture, kindness in the middle of torture, and the mind games creates more of this seeking behavior I think. And my therapist points this "kindness in the middle of torture" out a lot. So seems rather important. I think its to get me to see the torture part and not so much the love part. But anyway.
I could have totally missunderstood what you wrote so I appologize if I did.
ETA: I guess I should add
@Zoogal and
@Msbliz62 that I am not, I don't know, trying to turn down helpful ideas. But advising of tried and failed stuff. That's all.
It was advised to me before I stopped the rituals to let someone see my browsing history and it doesn't matter in that moment. Nor has any sort of block worked.
I also tried for a LONG time to gain support via a support group and failed and then via a church and failed plus that came to smack me in the face.
It has never been a thing of will power but a thing of why i did it in the first place. That's all. And i posted that I didn't know why i did it but i know that isn't true. It just wasn't clear to me at that point but is now as I sit in my house all alone. Super duper clear. I am so not handling this well at all. As i feared i wouldn't.