Confusion, resentment, and reality

[dgoods]

One of the issues that i struggle with is trying to gauge how much of the difficulty i experience with women and relationships (and i mean all relationships, not just romantic ones) has been colored by what i went through at age 7 (11-y.o. female abuser), and what was colored by my later abuse by an adult male stranger...
I notice myself being far more emotionally raw and invested with any relationship with a woman, as opposed to a man, generally speaking... i guess my puzzlement is, "does this have its root more in the abuse i experienced at a younger age from an underage female neighbor (undoubtedly a CSA survivor herself), or more from the abuse i experienced 4 years later with an adult male stranger?"

Right now, for me, when i think back on it all, what happened with Wendy when i was 7 seems much more emotionally significant.
Yet, there's also the possibility that part of my mind's still trying to minimize the other abuse... there's more flatness, more reluctance to go there mentally.

Ah well- maybe posting all this will help someone else- even if only the tone of anxiety, preoccupation and overthinking strike a chord ;-)
Bless you if you managed to read this far, heh!

 

[ttoon]

dgoods,

An excellent question, I think.

In the past couple of months I have had the opportunity to share some time with two survivors, both, were abused by women.

Each time I come away amazed at how our experiences are not alike in terms of the abuse itself, but the way in which it has manifested itself in our lives is strikingly similiar.

I don't want to distract from the thread at all...but is it the abuse or, the isolation we seek afterward and how that affects our lives that is really the issue?

Okay, I know...sounds like heresy...but, what do you think?





Dave

 

[dgoods]

Hi Dave, and a very belated "welcome back"-
Not "heresy" to me; it's aways a good thing when a post gets neurons firing, no matter what direction thoughts may take...

As far as isolation, i guess in my mid-teens to early-twenties, i was more about trying to prove how nothing could faze me; there's a particular psychological phrase that describes this attitude/behavior, but it's hiding just past "the tip of my tongue", so to speak...
One of the things i've learned in my time here, is that the experience of feeling both like a hapless observer/passenger on some carnival ride from hell, and yet being unable to inject a more objective viewpoint in what seems to be at times a yo-yo ride between helpless, abject clinginess/neediness, and cold, hard, sneering cynicism/aloofness, is not necessarily unique to me (i know; shocking revelation, indeed)

Let's put it this way; while i know that nothing but good can result from my pressing onward in my recovery, it's still hard for me to digest that long-cherished myths in the "well, at least i..." category, are exactly that; myths.

One can read over and over again here that "Recovery is neither quick or easy", aand intellectually digest the fact without difficulty, but like anything else, there's a difference between talking about something, and experiencing it directly...

So ends my ramble for the moment ;-)

 

[jacobtk]

I can relate to the anxiety about being in relationships with women. I find it difficult to relax around women. That may be because my aunt manner wasn't overtly violent when she did things. The acts were painful, but she always spoke in a soft voice and was neutral. For many women that's their default behavior, so being around them feels like being around my aunt. When women see that they try to... comfort me, but that's the way my aunt behaved. She would coo me as she did those things, so I really don't know how to respond to women at all other than keeping them at a distance or just doing whatever they want so they will leave me alone.

I've always thought the reason for this is because I didn't have safe women around me while I grew up. I didn't have any woman like my youngest uncle who, even though he was only seven years older, showed me that all adults don't have to do those things. Even when I got out the situation, the first women I was around didn't believe me or treated me horribly. At the moment I'm set in my ways and I'm not looking for a relationship or sex so I haven't tried to address this.

 

[ttoon]

...my aunt manner wasn't overtly violent when she did things. The acts were painful, but she always spoke in a soft voice and was neutral.

jacobtk,

I can certainly relate to what you are saying here...it makes the whole thing kind of surreal, uh? As we look to the people around us for validation for how and, what we are feeling, as we experience most anything. To intentionally cause pain but, do it while speaking in a soft voice was always confusing to me and, interesting too, how the message is imprinted, uh?

One of the things i've learned in my time here, is that the experience of feeling both like a hapless observer/passenger on some carnival ride from hell, and yet being unable to inject a more objective viewpoint in what seems to be at times a yo-yo ride between helpless, abject clinginess/neediness, and cold, hard, sneering cynicism/aloofness, is not necessarily unique to me (i know; shocking revelation, indeed)

dgoods,

So, you know...I do a couple of different groups. I like groups. In them, we are encouraged to ask questions, that is, if the person talking is open for it. That might be mistaken for any number of things here but, that is how I process things. I ask a lot of questions.

To incorporate jacobtk's post into this...

As infants we look to our parents, as though they might be a mirror with which to determine what we are feeling. If we grow up flying down the road at a thousand miles an hour with our hair on fire, sitting next to a parent who is calmly smoking a cigarette and singing 'Raindrops are falling on my head,' we might just possibly come away with a slightly skewed perspective on things. We step out into the "average" world still looking for validation, more mirrors and find not everyone shares our perspective. We can say screw them, it doesn't matter but, really, as humans, we crave companionship.

If you put a plane crash victim, a train crash victim and a CSA survivor all together in a room...each has experienced something that is considered as having happened outside the normal realm of human experience. Each is changed by the experience. Trust in varying degrees has been shattered in their faith as to how things did work or, are supposed to work. The symptoms they experience are similiar, even though their experiences are completely different.

There is confusion because they are changed by the experience. They are not who they were before the experience and, they have to process now, who they will be having experienced these experiences. We might safely assume that none of these people were at fault in any of these circumstances and, yet, their lives are forever altered by them. It is understandable that they will be angry..."I did not choose it, why me, why now, why...."

So, my question would be...isn't all of this...

One of the things i've learned in my time here, is that the experience of feeling both like a hapless observer/passenger on some carnival ride from hell, and yet being unable to inject a more objective viewpoint in what seems to be at times a yo-yo ride between helpless, abject clinginess/neediness, and cold, hard, sneering cynicism/aloofness, is not necessarily unique to me (i know; shocking revelation, indeed)

one emotion? And isn't that one emotion anger? And, isn't it a perfectly "average" response, given the circumstances? And, if it is but, there is no one to hear or no one that listens...if the mirror is shattered and or distorted along the way...isn't this exactly where we end up, on MS, asking these questions?

Just wondering, just asking...


Dave

 

[dgoods]

Good food for thought, Dave.

I'm not sure if i could lump it all into the "anger" category; after all, there's still plenty of fear/anxiety, shame, despair, etc. left over. Sometimes my emotional state reminds me of those fiber-optic displays, that cycle slowly through a set of colors... now, where's the damn "off" switch?
;-)