Childhood Wanting to Talk to Groomer

[LeiaFlower]

I don't think asking your family what they remember or quitting self-harm are bad ideas on their own

Sadly my main motivation to stopping self harm was to get my memories back. Now I’m at a standstill of not knowing if I want to quit again.

but in my own experience, desperately wanting your memories back turns self-destructive quickly. When I was involved in court stuff I needed to remember more to be able to prove that my abuser was guilty. I wanted her in prison at all costs, so I was willing to do anything to get those memories back. I would regularly trigger myself into flashbacks to try and get more details. I was obsessed with searching my memory for more details. Doing these things to myself made me really unstable and miserable.

I understand the desperation. Even though I can say I wouldn’t go that far, harming myself emotionally in order to get memories, I know how badly I want them to come back. If I knew my triggers I would trigger them now.

Your brain has hidden these memories from you to protect you and will probably only give them back to you as you heal and become more stable and functional.

I wish being stable was a strong enough motivator. However, I always give in by telling myself I’ll get stable later.

Trying to get them back on your own doesn't work, your subconscious decides when you get them back, at least in my experience. The best things I could do to get my memories back were to become more stable and be open to receiving the memories.

I just don’t understand how more stable I can become.

 

[Sideways]

I just don’t understand how more stable I can become.

Not SHing to manage distress would be a key part of stability. That is - using other, non-harmful strategies instead.

 

[prynne]

I wish being stable was a strong enough motivator.

Sadly my main motivation to stopping self harm was to get my memories back. Now I’m at a standstill of not knowing if I want to quit again.

I thought she would be able to get away with it while I’m stuck paying for the after effects.

I want to sue, I want to do something. I don’t want her to get away with it.

I just want justice I guess. I want her to be held accountable and for her to never be allowed to do this to someone again. Though I’m sure she did. She had other little girls over.

What about getting justice being a motivator for you to get stable?

I know it's cheesy, but the best kind of revenge you can have really is not letting them get away with ruining your life (and I'm close with someone who killed one of their abusers in self-defense. Not as satisfying as you would think). If you are recovered, that means that she wasn't able to trap you with the after-effects of the evil things she did.

It is possible that you might be able to hold her accountable legally, but you aren't going to be very capable of doing that if your PTSD is still out of control. Court is extremely stressful even for healthy people, stressful enough to make them give up or be unsuccessful at proving their case. It's likely that if you start the legal process while you're still relying on self-harm to cope and your PTSD is out of control, that the pressures of a legal battle will be too much for you to handle. If you become stable before you try to sue her or convict her, I think it would be more likely that things will go well for you and you might be able to send her to prison. It will be hard for you to help yourself get justice or help anyone else victimized by her get justice if you are mentally unstable.

I'm not able to get legal justice at this time (for my specific incident), so what I do in the meantime is try to help other survivors. It's unfair that these people are stuck with the consequences of the evil actions of another person, so I try to help them feel less miserable and recover. Things feel less unfair when those people are feeling happier.

 

[Charbella]

I’d start with your family and see how that goes, if it goes well confronting your abuser might too but you also might want to invest some time in how to manage your SH before doing much of anything. Yes that’s coming from someone who does.

 

[Friday]

thank you for the explanation of groomer. i guess i better start thinking on another word for the work i do with my animals. another one bites the dust. . .

One of the biggest problems with “grooming” is that grooming without sexual abuse following? Is AKA friendship, family, love/like/appreciation/enjoyment. Very NORMAL & wanted things in life. Simply not followed by rape & other abuses/betrayals of trust.

Grooming = Getting Someone/Something Ready For.

Whether it’s a horse, or yourself; ready for the day &/or dealing with the consequences of the day; it’s a normal/necessary/wanted part of living a full and active life. Unless? It’s someone perverting the normal/necessary/wanted for their own ends.

Remove the sexual abuse? It’s NOT grooming… but friendship, mentorship, true affection.

Abusers take the real & just needs of the heart and minds… and warp them.

English doesn’t have a good word for that… outside of archaic terms largely out of use (as modern one would cause a WTF/Does not apply moment… meaning “to prepare one for the task at hand”. IE Groom. Whether one is talking horses or marriage. It’s so far outside of common lexicon as to be able to take on its own -related- meaning.

 

[Weemie]

Would asking my family, quitting self, etc. with the purpose of retrieving memories be forcing it?

Asking your family would likely fall into that category. Quitting self-harm is probably a good idea anyway, though. If you can quit, you should go for it! Memories may come or they may not, in my opinion "forcing" them would be akin to rumination.

In my experience there was never a point at which I felt like "oh right, now I can remember and I'll be perfectly fine with it." Gaining memories in any sense but the chaotic fracture that I'm accustomed to almost always throws me for a loop and lobs a big old nuclear bomb into the center of my mind.

Best advice I have to give is to focus on your stability, that way if it does happen you'll have more skills at hand to cope with it.

 

[arfie]

thank you for the more detailed explanation, @Friday. as a child prostitution survivor, i am painfully familiar with the concepts. pimps often use their current child victims to recruit and train new victims. children do follow children even more readily than they follow adults.

as a farmer, animal lover and social distancing champ, i don't get out much. i hadn't heard "grooming" as a psych term before. the therapy value i gain from ? ? ? providing hygienic care ? ? ? for my animals is immense. shrug-a-lug. life goes on, by whatever name.

 

[Charbella]

@arfie in the US what you’re referring to IS grooming. I pay my groomer to groom my dogs, the Petsmart sign says grooming for that department.

However there is another groomer who gets kids to willingly participate in sex acts By first figuring out what they might need and then giving it to them and slowly getting to know and touch them until it seems to late to do anything about it.

it’s kind of like other words in the English language, I can go to the park or I can park my car. There are bats at night and he used his bat to hit the ball.

You don’t need a different word.

 

[Sideways]

Grooming = Getting Someone/Something Ready For.

Well, legally, no. Not anymore, in the context of a discussion around child abuse. I think the UK and Canada both have their own legislated definitions.

Here in Australia, Grooming has got a legal definition, and is a criminal offence. It's essentially preparing a child to be sexually abused. So that predatory behaviour is, all by itself, something that can now be actioned, so that you don't have to wait for a child to be sexually abused in order to take protective measures.

It's a new area of law, so we don't know much about how (or if) it's actually making any difference on the ground.

 

[LeiaFlower]

best kind of revenge you can have really is not letting them get away with ruining your life. If you are recovered, that means that she wasn't able to trap you with the after-effects of the evil things she did.

This is true, so far the urges has died down. However, a good affirmation can be “Don’t let her win.” I’m hoping it’s strong enough.

It is possible that you might be able to hold her accountable legally, but you aren't going to be very capable of doing that if your PTSD is still out of control. Court is extremely stressful even for healthy people, stressful enough to make them give up or be unsuccessful at proving their case. It's likely that if you start the legal process while you're still relying on self-harm to cope and your PTSD is out of control, that the pressures of a legal battle will be too much for you to handle. If you become stable before you try to sue her or convict her, I think it would be more likely that things will go well for you and you might be able to send her to prison. It will be hard for you to help yourself get justice or help anyone else victimized by her get justice if you are mentally unstable.

This is very true. There’s no point when I’m unstable. Though at times when I’m the most unstable I don’t even realize it, which is why I started checking in with my support system. They usually can tell if something is way off with me. I can’t trust myself with that.

I know deep down I want to be better. I want to be stable and healthy, it’s just achieving it feels so far away. My impatience isn’t for the sake of it. I always think that if I take too long others will give up on me. That my therapist will, my support system. Or that if it takes too long then I’ll be too far gone for help. Which is why I want to rush things. I don’t want to be left behind.

I'm not able to get legal justice at this time (for my specific incident), so what I do in the meantime is try to help other survivors. It's unfair that these people are stuck with the consequences of the evil actions of another person, so I try to help them feel less miserable and recover. Things feel less unfair when those people are feeling happier.

Sounds corney as well but there is happiness in giving. It helps when there isn’t much to receive.

 

[arfie]

it’s kind of like other words in the English language, I can go to the park or I can park my car. There are bats at night and he used his bat to hit the ball.

right you are, charbella. there are homonyms in every empirical language ever created by human kind. we humans do like our poetic license. but equally, there are words which develop such specialized meanings that one dare not be gay about them. on a topic as emotionally/politically charged as CSA, i prefer not to take the risk. i'm okay providing hygienic care for my animals rather than risk a listing on a finger-pointing website for grooming them. lucky for me, i my animals don't care what words or even which language i use while i provide their hygienic care. they listen to my tones more than my words. i'm multilingual, so i frequently speak to them in different languages and methinks all those human languages sound the same to them.

attempted humor alert
why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?

 

[somerandomguy]

why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway?

Why Do We Park in the Driveway and Drive on the Parkway?

Finally, the answer to one of life's enduring questions

www.merriam-webster.com