Somatic discomfort/Pain stored in the body - Please help

Somatic discomfort/Pain stored in the body - Please help

CardiffKook

Registrant
Hi Everyone. I was sexually abuses as a young child. I don't remember the abuse, my mom told me about it in my adulthood after my pressing her about it. Why would I press her about it if I didn't remember? Because my body remembered.

After the abuse, my mom said my personality changed, I became angry and I developed an uncontrollable habit to put underwear or a finger in my rectum. It wasn't a specific pain that drove me to do this, but an overwhelming urge that if I didn't satisfy, my body would just go haywire, legs start shaking and I feel out of my mind.

Needless to say, my mom never told the doctors about the abuse, but did take me in several times throughout the years to see specialist and proctologist to try and figure out what's driving me to pick my butt as it were. Doctors never found nothing. The most they could come up with is "maybe he's not wiping good enough."

This has led to a separate complex into adulthood where I overly wipe, to the point of inserting the tp and finger in the rectum to get it clean. (this is a side issue, not my main problem).

To this day, I 39 years old, I still deal with this compulsion to stick underwear or finger in my anus every single day throughout the day. It makes social interactions and sleeping very difficult. Even sitting down, I've learned how to squirm in my chair and wiggle my butt to get the needed pressure on my anus just to settle my nervous system. Sometimes it gets so overhwhelming that I start punching myself.

I've never talked to anyone whose ever heard of or experienced anything like this. I'm desperate and hoping someone may be able to relate or give some advice on how to deal with this. It drives me mad, and I don't even remember the actual incident.
 
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I definitely have my obsessive compulsions when it comes to bathroom habits and keeping the nether regions clean and free of discomfort, although mine started as an adult, particularly after I started recovery from csa. Are these habits and csa related? I personally would say so. Based on your post it seems you also make a connection between your habit and sexual abuse. It's interesting how you changed, from your mother's description of you, after the abuse. I say this because I tend to associate obsessive compulsion with repressed anger and in her description of you there seems to be a connection also. That's as much insight as I can perhaps provide, but maybe you can benefit from two books that it seems would be helpful for you. One is called "The Body Remembers" by Babette Rothschild and the other is called "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Both are books about the effects of trauma. Either way I hope you can find some relief, as it sounds like you are quite troubled by this habit.
 
Hi @CardiffKook,

Have you tried getting treatment for OCD/ compulsive thoughts?
This doesn't sound like something a proctologist can help with.

It sounds very similar to what I experience with PTSD and the obsessive thought and feeling from it. I don't have the same issues as you but recognize the feelings.
 
Hi, thank you both. I've not seen a therapist for OCD/Compulsive thoughts. I have been diagnosed with major depression with dissociative properties, anxiety. I've never mentioned the abuse in sessions, mainly because I don't have any direct memories related to the incident. I've been worried that when pressed for details of the incident, and I'm unable to provide any, that they wouldn't believe me. I still question it to this day, even though logically I know it occurred. I was about 5 years old when the 12 year old neighbor boy would watch me. I just remember one day his dad and my mom yelling and cussing and fighting real loud. I felt it had something to do with me. I felt so ashamed. I was never allowed over again.

The main issue I have, I struggle with deciphering if it's OCD or physical. The main reason, this is something that continuously bothers and disturbs my sleep. I wake up several times a night tossing and turning because of it, restless and have to physically engage to settle my nervous system. This occurs as well during the day, at work, at parties. At really really inopportune times where its super awkward. I've left rooms just so I could go handle it real quick, head to the bathroom or something. Extremely disruptive. I will reach out to my doctors today. I've been reluctant, because like I said, I've seen plenty of specialist and proctologist. But I think a new direction is warranted at this stage of my life.
 
I definitely have my obsessive compulsions when it comes to bathroom habits and keeping the nether regions clean and free of discomfort, although mine started as an adult, particularly after I started recovery from csa. Are these habits and csa related? I personally would say so. Based on your post it seems you also make a connection between your habit and sexual abuse. It's interesting how you changed, from your mother's description of you, after the abuse. I say this because I tend to associate obsessive compulsion with repressed anger and in her description of you there seems to be a connection also. That's as much insight as I can perhaps provide, but maybe you can benefit from two books that it seems would be helpful for you. One is called "The Body Remembers" by Babette Rothschild and the other is called "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Both are books about the effects of trauma. Either way I hope you can find some relief, as it sounds like you are quite troubled by this habit.
Another excellent book I'm just finishing up is "What happened to You?" cowritten by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Whinfrey. It is an excellent read about trauma, and trauma inflicted on young children.
 
Another excellent book I'm just finishing up is "What happened to You?" cowritten by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Whinfrey. It is an excellent read about trauma, and trauma inflicted on young children.
Thanks for the tip. I'll check it out.
 
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