Childhood What Effects Did You Child Sexual Abuse/ Incest Have On You?

[Hooper]

In EMDR therapy can you retreive memories?

It didn't help me retrieve memories. We went over worse fears as a child. Mine was when my mother tried to put my father in prison for embezzling $40-50k from the family business into a joint acct she benefited from. My issue was my wife's rape. What emdr did for me was tied 2 totally different abstract events into 1

 

[rightkindofme]

It sounds like therapy could be helpful for you. I've been in and out of therapy for 32 years now. I've come a long way. I have had ups and downs throughout my life. I'm 35. I was raped by my father for years and I eventually prosecuted him. He killed himself instead of going to prison. It kinda jacks you up.

Of course I have PTSD. I also have ADHD (which isn't caused by the abuse) and anxiety and depression and suicidal ideation/gestures and self harm in a variety of ways and fibromyalgia and IBS and PMDD and a variety of non-related other problems.

I need to talk about stuff. If I don't talk it gets stuck in loops in my head and I can't function.

You aren't weird for the masturbation stuff. You are not the only person to put a Barbie inside you. I used to go out and *solicit* the ancient gross old men when I was a young girl. 50 years olds liked to sleep with me when I was 15. It's pretty gross in retrospect. But it was the journey I apparently needed to go through. I've had periods of really extreme sexual acting out. I'm queer and really bad at monogamy so I've had a lot of partners.

It's a process. I can't think of life as a staircase where I'm always moving up. I'm on a roller coaster. Sometimes I go up and it is wonderful and I'm so grateful. Then I get flung in a terrifying dash towards the floor. I miss by inches.

I hope you get some support.

 

[Tree23]

The effects are quite strange for me as I've only been dealing with them for about two years now. I was abused when I was both 6 or 7 and 10, by people who both are very young too, 10. It honestly hurts. My Brain hurts. I feel weak sometimes. I find it hard to trust people. I get scared of ever seeing the people that hurt me again. But I just deal with it. It's my way I guess. I've accepted that I'll have nightmares often and that the memories will play over and over again, but that's just how I'll have to deal with my life. Not to say to anyone else that if therapy works don't do it. By all means whatever helps do it, I'm probably just ashamed to talk personally.

 

[XXbabydollXX]

:hug:
I'm really sorry you were put through all that. You're not a slut and you're not disgusting. Someo...

I know I need one I'm gonna be 18 soon I'm out of the situation I would rather wait till then to go a therapist so I don't have to ask my mom and talk about it.

 

[Intrepid]

My egg donor had a go at me, as well as her dad and a cousin. Mom was first when I was 5 and followed up by flashing me and describing her sexual frustrations to me as I got older. By the time grandpa got his hands on me at 6 years old I was numb. There was also a lot of physical abuse, so it sucked all around. Thank god I had some brothers who didn't catch as much of the craziness as I did. They were my rock.

I started having flashbacks when I was 13 and didn't understand what was happening. The shame and sense of being dirty and bad was too much to bare. I numbed out the best I could with alcohol and masturbation. I stayed numb as much as possible most of my life.

I'm in EMDR now. My therapist is now avoiding having me remember too much. For a while I was drowning in memories. I have enough awful memories and images to last a lifetime. She's focused on my feelings and bringing them to the surface, sort of like letting off the pressure. It's working better than talk therapy.

When you get a therapist remember that the abuse can make you feel all kinds of crazy stuff. I had to tell them of the way I felt around them, which was really humiliating. I had to tell them not to re-traumatize me. It took me a while to trust that they weren't just more abusers waiting for their chance. I wish you the best for finding a therapist.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

....Severe Major Depression, Disabling Delayed-Onset c-PTSD, Abuse Specific Repetition Compulsion, Suicidal Ideations, Intrusive Thoughts/Body Memories, Dissociation, Disturbing Nightmares, Self-Harm (Cutting/picking), Avoidant Behavior, Social Anxiety, Agoraphobia, Hypervigilance, and it robbed me of the opportunity to develop my sexuality naturally, in a healthy way with a person of my choice.

I could relate to all of these plus I had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

My father was my main perpetrator and the abuse started around three years old, at least that I know of, but could've been sooner. Three years old is my current earliest memory. My father's abuse was ritual abuse (RA). He forced me to watch him kidnap, rape, torture, and kill boys.

For a long time, I could only recognize that father-daughter rape had happened to others. I don't know how I zeroed in on their truth, but I did. Yet I couldn't see it in myself; that it happened to me too.

I've been in and out of therapy since I was 25 years old. I am now 64 and going back to therapy again.

My mother and older brother also assaulted me emotionally/mentally on an almost daily basis. After my father abused me I came back home to an abusive family. My mother also physically assaulted several times.

 

[Lionheart]

@Incongruous ,

This might not be very helpful, still I am sad that you went through so much abuse!!! The perps were the really sick ones and we got left to deal with the aftermath...so unfair!!!

I am 56 yrs old and see no end to therapy as it helps me so much to have someone to bounce things off of and get their feedback and insight.
I used to wonder why I would freeze when I was threatened, but now understand that it is a common choice when one cannot fight or run away...it is another over-developed defense mechanism.

Anyways, thank you for sharing your experience, it helps to know I am not alone and that others do understand how tuff it is. I was diagnosed with fragmented personality disorder and was just this side of getting a DID diagnosis. I have known those who've had several alters, some who integrated and some who did not, but they seem to function well regardless, and I am in awe of their strength and resiliency.

Thanks again for sharing.

With much admiration and respect,
Lionheart777

 

[Deleted member 8714]

I have known those who've had several alters, some who integrated and some who did not...and I am in awe of their strength and resiliency.

I had close to a hundred alters and fragments. I gave up trying to track how many there were. In 2006 I integrated. When I remembered the worst of the ritual abuse it was after 2010.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I got into heavy drugs as a teenager and was date raped at fourteen years old. This was a side effect of being assaulted by my father in the second grade quite violently. I blocked some of the memory and only have gaps with that memory. I became very promiscous and was raped repeatedly because of my heavy involvement with drugs and alcohol. I hated and loathed myself and considered myself ruined. My dad also ritually beat all of his children on an almost daily basis. Both parents were sadistic and very cruel. My mom hated my guts because she had been date raped by my father and their parents forced them to get married.

No self worth and quite low self esteem. I did get married and felt saved and respectable. I had two children who also were each molested one time each. I made police reports against both abusers and shut down my fathers daycare with the help of the Ombusman program. He got scared and sold everything and moved out of the state soon after.

I got into therapy shortly after I got my kids into the best therapists office I could find at the time. Was in therapy for nine years and now more repressed memories are surfacing among other things and I am headed back into therapy with my old therapist soon. I did have EMDR and it totally changed my life for the better and I am not haunted by the intrusive memories I did have before. I have been able to place the shame and blame on all of my abusers. There is probably more but that is all I can remember.

 

[NewBeginnings]

Not sure I have much to share that would make a difference but thank you all for posting. I feel so new to admitting and accepting that bad things happened. I appreciate seeing these posts - I admire that many of you have so much to offer. Thank you to the OP - this thread has been a kind of validation.
I agree that this process/ journey is like a roller coaster.

 

[anonymous]

Problems relating to others, social phobia, nightmares, anger, homicidal ideation, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, self hatred, internalized homophobia, dissociation, hatred and distrust of other people, isolation, hatred of being female, disbelief that others love me and rejecting that love for fear of being harmed again, denial, self - destructive behaviours, confusion over my sexual orientation. My mother sexually abused me in early childhood.

 

[XXbabydollXX]

It sounds like therapy could be helpful for you. I've been in and out of therapy for 32 years now...

Thanks. I'm going to wait a few months till I turn 18 and then go to a therapist because I don't want to ask my mom about it.