brokenpony
Silver Member
is it an addictive mechanism at its heart?
when someone (especially someone in uneven power dynamic) starts to groom me i get sucked in really fast. like really really fast. it’s like in a movie when someone thinks they’re free and moves to escape and looks down to see they have already been handcuffed. it feels like i get taken over by the trauma response and experience that “compulsion to repeat the trauma” so strongly that i cannot do right by myself. and ofc that causes shame and desperation to not be this way. because i’m an adult now, i’m safe, in control? but—not then. i’m just not in control anymore. i don’t know how else to describe the feeling because it’s insanely complicated.
when i was a younger adult (i’ve had a few abusive relationships begin with grooming tactics) i didn’t know it was happening or that i was being abused, but last time (mid-30s) i did, but it didn’t make any difference??? i was reading books about it while it was happening (this person was my therapist which made it especially insidious because i could explain away a lot at first, especially because he would dismiss any of my questioning as me projecting past experience onto him, erotic transference, etc). it’s as if i just can’t break the spell once it has been cast. i watch the train crash in slow motion, i’m fighting a force inside me and feel helpless. but i’m not supposed to be because i’m an adult. but—not then.
i try to explain to my now therapist. this helplessness. because it’s post-traumatic but it’s a long-term helplessness that kicks in, not the same as acute freeze response that has happened in isolated assaults. it is a complex thing that in her view is a dissociated part but even still she doesn’t seem to totally understand the degree of helpless i feel. helpless to protect myself and the part from itself.
i’m an adult but not with “them,” once they target me like that. sometimes it’s the “watching yourself from behind the eyes” thing. how i willingly give them ammunition even? i hear myself telling them vulnerabilities i dont mean to share, watch myself regress, etc. it makes me feel so crazy and possessed. but then alone, outside the room, i can’t break it off because the drive to see them is so powerful and that’s why i call it addiction maybe. i want it and i don’t at the same time. i want it but am repulsed and scared too. i don’t want it. it’s not my wanting but intrusive. i fight myself and lose. perhaps adrenaline plays a part.
i have had little issues stopping alcohol, when i clearly had a problem, but not this. i have had some short relapses on it but i rarely crave it. i drank to feel emotions because i’m so numb. i am normally a controlled person (which can be good or bad, see restrictive ED, which helped me quit drinking bourbon every night due to calories) but not in this certain type of case. in the case of sexual grooming and abuse, it is like an alcoholic taking a sip after 15 years sober and then downing the bottle and never stopping until something forces them. with all the misery that comes with it despite the high you get.
i know about trauma bonding but it happens too fast to even be called that. i think maybe it is triggering past trauma bond feelings from other relationships before i consciously understand anything or even feel it. like within 3 meetings? and i’m sure they can tell. and the longer it happens the more this trauma response surfaces and takes hold and ruins my life. and the thing is i haven’t pursued a romantic relationship in 10 years because of this problem. i don’t take the risk and am scared of people. i feel sometimes the urges to go “replay trauma” but resist them the same way i resist alcohol. yet somehow it still happens to me. by chance. because predatory people seem to see that underneath my guardedness is vulnerability even i do not know or feel most of the time.
it also makes me feel very scared to realize how vulnerable i still am even holding all this knowledge about abuse dynamics, complex trauma, etc. and i don’t quite know what to do if this happens in the future. i can avoid relationships but once someone targets me and the “grooming” trauma response goes off it’s like, set in motion. it honestly feels like a manchurian candidate or pod person thing in how little control i have. a switch flips and someone i found unattractive when i first met them becomes desirable and i become hypersexual very fast even though i’m mostly sex averse or neutral in my daily life. it’s madness.
i write this because i fear it is happening right now with another person with power over me. i feel that “familiar feeling” all of a sudden for the past couple weeks and it’s loud now. like they are trying to make me feel special in a way that feels manipulative. i feel the traumatized “part” awakened again, wanting it to be true. i truly hope i am being paranoid because i feel an extreme draw to this person now, i cannot bring myself to cut ties yet, even though i also have no interest in them at the same time. the “desire” is insistent.
i try to keep cool and remind myself i have a safe therapist now to help me navigate if the unlikely possibility is true. it is unlikely to be true—but also that’s only part of the point. the point is that it could happen again, down the line, because even after all this time, knowledge, grounding, blah blah i can feel i am just as vulnerable as i was as a child, somehow. and because it is unlikely to be true maybe it is a good thing this person has triggered me so, a kind of space to work through it without the imminent danger my body feels it is in?
does this make sense? do you relate? please be kind, i’m struggling with this and have been having somatic flashbacks.
when someone (especially someone in uneven power dynamic) starts to groom me i get sucked in really fast. like really really fast. it’s like in a movie when someone thinks they’re free and moves to escape and looks down to see they have already been handcuffed. it feels like i get taken over by the trauma response and experience that “compulsion to repeat the trauma” so strongly that i cannot do right by myself. and ofc that causes shame and desperation to not be this way. because i’m an adult now, i’m safe, in control? but—not then. i’m just not in control anymore. i don’t know how else to describe the feeling because it’s insanely complicated.
when i was a younger adult (i’ve had a few abusive relationships begin with grooming tactics) i didn’t know it was happening or that i was being abused, but last time (mid-30s) i did, but it didn’t make any difference??? i was reading books about it while it was happening (this person was my therapist which made it especially insidious because i could explain away a lot at first, especially because he would dismiss any of my questioning as me projecting past experience onto him, erotic transference, etc). it’s as if i just can’t break the spell once it has been cast. i watch the train crash in slow motion, i’m fighting a force inside me and feel helpless. but i’m not supposed to be because i’m an adult. but—not then.
i try to explain to my now therapist. this helplessness. because it’s post-traumatic but it’s a long-term helplessness that kicks in, not the same as acute freeze response that has happened in isolated assaults. it is a complex thing that in her view is a dissociated part but even still she doesn’t seem to totally understand the degree of helpless i feel. helpless to protect myself and the part from itself.
i’m an adult but not with “them,” once they target me like that. sometimes it’s the “watching yourself from behind the eyes” thing. how i willingly give them ammunition even? i hear myself telling them vulnerabilities i dont mean to share, watch myself regress, etc. it makes me feel so crazy and possessed. but then alone, outside the room, i can’t break it off because the drive to see them is so powerful and that’s why i call it addiction maybe. i want it and i don’t at the same time. i want it but am repulsed and scared too. i don’t want it. it’s not my wanting but intrusive. i fight myself and lose. perhaps adrenaline plays a part.
i have had little issues stopping alcohol, when i clearly had a problem, but not this. i have had some short relapses on it but i rarely crave it. i drank to feel emotions because i’m so numb. i am normally a controlled person (which can be good or bad, see restrictive ED, which helped me quit drinking bourbon every night due to calories) but not in this certain type of case. in the case of sexual grooming and abuse, it is like an alcoholic taking a sip after 15 years sober and then downing the bottle and never stopping until something forces them. with all the misery that comes with it despite the high you get.
i know about trauma bonding but it happens too fast to even be called that. i think maybe it is triggering past trauma bond feelings from other relationships before i consciously understand anything or even feel it. like within 3 meetings? and i’m sure they can tell. and the longer it happens the more this trauma response surfaces and takes hold and ruins my life. and the thing is i haven’t pursued a romantic relationship in 10 years because of this problem. i don’t take the risk and am scared of people. i feel sometimes the urges to go “replay trauma” but resist them the same way i resist alcohol. yet somehow it still happens to me. by chance. because predatory people seem to see that underneath my guardedness is vulnerability even i do not know or feel most of the time.
it also makes me feel very scared to realize how vulnerable i still am even holding all this knowledge about abuse dynamics, complex trauma, etc. and i don’t quite know what to do if this happens in the future. i can avoid relationships but once someone targets me and the “grooming” trauma response goes off it’s like, set in motion. it honestly feels like a manchurian candidate or pod person thing in how little control i have. a switch flips and someone i found unattractive when i first met them becomes desirable and i become hypersexual very fast even though i’m mostly sex averse or neutral in my daily life. it’s madness.
i write this because i fear it is happening right now with another person with power over me. i feel that “familiar feeling” all of a sudden for the past couple weeks and it’s loud now. like they are trying to make me feel special in a way that feels manipulative. i feel the traumatized “part” awakened again, wanting it to be true. i truly hope i am being paranoid because i feel an extreme draw to this person now, i cannot bring myself to cut ties yet, even though i also have no interest in them at the same time. the “desire” is insistent.
i try to keep cool and remind myself i have a safe therapist now to help me navigate if the unlikely possibility is true. it is unlikely to be true—but also that’s only part of the point. the point is that it could happen again, down the line, because even after all this time, knowledge, grounding, blah blah i can feel i am just as vulnerable as i was as a child, somehow. and because it is unlikely to be true maybe it is a good thing this person has triggered me so, a kind of space to work through it without the imminent danger my body feels it is in?
does this make sense? do you relate? please be kind, i’m struggling with this and have been having somatic flashbacks.
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