Do all CSA survivors act out?
Brokenhearted
Registrant
This may not be answerable, but just wondered if acting out is so compulsory to survivors of CSA that EVERYONE does this.....and if not, why not.
Do all CSA survivors act out?
- Thread starterBrokenhearted
- Start date
Nobby and Broken:
Becoming a sexual abuser if you are victimized is NOT a common occurance. Most abusers have claimed to have been abused but when researchers use polygraph to verify their childhood abuse, most fail and the likelihood that a victim will become an abuser is very small. Most survivors here have not abused anyone else.
It may be different if you talk about self-defeating or self-destructive behaviors (not sexual abuse). Many or most survivors can talk about things they've done to hurt themselves, but please don't assume that if a person has been abused, he will go on to abuse others. That is a myth and can be a self-fulfilling prophesy for some.
To give you another example, if you go to a heroin detox program and ask how many used marijuana before going on to heroin, most would probably say they use pot before heroin. However, if you sample the folks who used pot, you would find that most never went on to heroin.
Be careful of statistics.
Ken
Becoming a sexual abuser if you are victimized is NOT a common occurance. Most abusers have claimed to have been abused but when researchers use polygraph to verify their childhood abuse, most fail and the likelihood that a victim will become an abuser is very small. Most survivors here have not abused anyone else.
It may be different if you talk about self-defeating or self-destructive behaviors (not sexual abuse). Many or most survivors can talk about things they've done to hurt themselves, but please don't assume that if a person has been abused, he will go on to abuse others. That is a myth and can be a self-fulfilling prophesy for some.
To give you another example, if you go to a heroin detox program and ask how many used marijuana before going on to heroin, most would probably say they use pot before heroin. However, if you sample the folks who used pot, you would find that most never went on to heroin.
Be careful of statistics.
Ken
Brokenhearted
Registrant
Ken, thanks for the uplifting post.
I guess what I'm also wondering about is, how many abused actually go out to "act out" or recreate the abuse they were given w/ other adults? You know, like maybe either having sex with a prostitute since having normal, close, intimate sex w/ one's wife or gf might be too threatening to them, or going out to do bj's on another male because that's what was done to them. Or like having lots of just-sex on the side since they're not wanting any sex/intimacy with their wife.
I guess what I'm also wondering about is, how many abused actually go out to "act out" or recreate the abuse they were given w/ other adults? You know, like maybe either having sex with a prostitute since having normal, close, intimate sex w/ one's wife or gf might be too threatening to them, or going out to do bj's on another male because that's what was done to them. Or like having lots of just-sex on the side since they're not wanting any sex/intimacy with their wife.
I don't know of any research that addresses your question but from the comments posted around here, it seems that sexual acting out is not uncommon.
Sometimes the behavior is a (un)conscious way of re-doing the abuse. That is, the abuse is a re-enactment of what was done way back when. Only this time, the victim is now in the position to call the shots (selecting who, when, where, and what will be done.) This can change (temporarily) the sense of being controlled. The motivation is to change the outcome but it can come with a price.
Another version of this is to re-enact the abuse with the same outcome. This often comes when someone puts himself in the same situation (e.g., performing oral sex on another person) and the outcome is the same as it was way back when. It reinforces the negatives of the original abuse ("This is all I'm good for", "I'll be loved/accepted by doing this".)
Sometimes it is doing the same thing but changing the rules. By that, I mean the example you cited above. The man who is having difficulties in intimacy and/or sex with his wife may find that it is easier to have sex with a prostitute because sex has been contaminated in his mind by the abuse. Sex with the loved person is difficult because it is contaminated with the abuse so he may find it easier to "do the deed" with someone who is not at the level of the wife/girlfriend.
There are probably a number of different explanations but maybe this can spark a discussion that reflects other MS members' experiences or theories.
Fire away.
Ken
Sometimes the behavior is a (un)conscious way of re-doing the abuse. That is, the abuse is a re-enactment of what was done way back when. Only this time, the victim is now in the position to call the shots (selecting who, when, where, and what will be done.) This can change (temporarily) the sense of being controlled. The motivation is to change the outcome but it can come with a price.
Another version of this is to re-enact the abuse with the same outcome. This often comes when someone puts himself in the same situation (e.g., performing oral sex on another person) and the outcome is the same as it was way back when. It reinforces the negatives of the original abuse ("This is all I'm good for", "I'll be loved/accepted by doing this".)
Sometimes it is doing the same thing but changing the rules. By that, I mean the example you cited above. The man who is having difficulties in intimacy and/or sex with his wife may find that it is easier to have sex with a prostitute because sex has been contaminated in his mind by the abuse. Sex with the loved person is difficult because it is contaminated with the abuse so he may find it easier to "do the deed" with someone who is not at the level of the wife/girlfriend.
There are probably a number of different explanations but maybe this can spark a discussion that reflects other MS members' experiences or theories.
Fire away.
Ken
My partner "acted out" his abuse online, not in person. My understanding is that he was trying to do what Ken describes--trying to re-live the situation but have some control over how it happened (hence being online where he didn't have to be vulnerable at all, didn't even have to let anyone know who he was).
This makes sense to me since it was mostly when he was feeling like his real life was out of his control that he turned to acting out.
He also did a variety of self-destructive, secret, but not sexual, stuff that seemed to fit into that second category of reinforcing his own bad feelings about himself. Mostly this stuff was about self-neglect (financial, legal, physical).
And he certainly avoided intimacy (emotional and physical) for a long time, in most shapes and sizes. I don't think that his sexual acting out was about doing something "instead of" having a loving, normal sex life though... I think both the acting out and the lack of normal sex life were ways of stripping his relationships with others of their emotional component so that he could feel in control and not have to acknowledge his own needs.
This makes sense to me since it was mostly when he was feeling like his real life was out of his control that he turned to acting out.
He also did a variety of self-destructive, secret, but not sexual, stuff that seemed to fit into that second category of reinforcing his own bad feelings about himself. Mostly this stuff was about self-neglect (financial, legal, physical).
And he certainly avoided intimacy (emotional and physical) for a long time, in most shapes and sizes. I don't think that his sexual acting out was about doing something "instead of" having a loving, normal sex life though... I think both the acting out and the lack of normal sex life were ways of stripping his relationships with others of their emotional component so that he could feel in control and not have to acknowledge his own needs.
Brokenhearted
Registrant
Does the acting out commonly happen after the survivor realizes what's wrong - realizes his csa is contributing to his problems, or does the acting out usually occur beforehand as a way of dealing with an unknown void/compulsion?
roadrunner
Registrant
Brokenhearted,
My experience was that I was acting out at a time when I had no idea of the cause. I was in a kind of denial, but I was feeling worse and worse so far as my self-esteem and sense of worth were concerned. My response was to drink and use drugs. I would feel bad about myself, feel the urge to drink or get high, then do that and feel better temporarily, then I would fall into deep remorse and guilt over what I had done, and the cycle would start all over again.
That this had some connection with sexual abuse never occurred to me at the time, but in therapy my T has helped me to see that was all acting out in response to abuse.
Much love,
Larry
(edited to fix a typo)
My experience was that I was acting out at a time when I had no idea of the cause. I was in a kind of denial, but I was feeling worse and worse so far as my self-esteem and sense of worth were concerned. My response was to drink and use drugs. I would feel bad about myself, feel the urge to drink or get high, then do that and feel better temporarily, then I would fall into deep remorse and guilt over what I had done, and the cycle would start all over again.
That this had some connection with sexual abuse never occurred to me at the time, but in therapy my T has helped me to see that was all acting out in response to abuse.
Much love,
Larry
(edited to fix a typo)
Hi Brokenhearted,
In my relationship, it was both
My b/f was s/a by his mother; he married his high school sweetheart who was also abusive, mostly mentally/emotionally, but she hit him a lot too. As he puts it to me, he had a sex life until he was 13 and was able to put a stop to it then nothing. He got married at 26 or so, thinking he was going to have lots of sex yet didn't go through a box of condoms in 11 years. As a weird side note, he only found out a few months ago that his ex-wife came out as a lesbian. How's that for a kick in the head?
While my b/f was married, they spent 8 of their 11 years in counseling. The last counselor was the therapist he sees now. She is the one who picked up on the s/a despite his trying to hide it. Individual counseling took place for him back then, but after the divorce, he stopped.
OK, back on track. After my b/f got divorced, he went through what I call a second adolescence. This is so totally normal. He was single and free to do what he wished with who he wanted whenever he wanted but he didn't know how to meet women, much less approach them for dates and sex was out of the question. First he had too much sex and physical abuse as a child from the one who most should not have ever touched him that way and then he had none from the woman he married.
Enter the internet where every fantasy one can conceive of can be found. My b/f indulged himself in meeting skanky, yet equally as damaged women from all over the state, multiple women at any given time. He lived his non-working night hours in strip clubs where he also met women to have sex with. This went on for years. Enter me, five years ago. We developed what I believed was a fabulous, loving relationship where we were both exclusively with one another. Four years go by and I'm happy as a lark until all hell broke loose in October 2005 when I found out that he'd been continuing his old habits of talking to and meeting other women off the internet for sex the entire time we'd been together. You can imagine the devastation that followed, but it didn't stop there.
A couple of months went by; we got back together, he was just as devastated as I; he resumed counseling, he said. My ability to trust him had been shattered so I was on high alert. Fast forward to February 2006, my woman's intuition, that had failed me for the for the first 4 years of our relationship, kicked me in the ass. I called his therapist, mostly to see if I could get a recommendation for one for myself because he had been laying so much on me. She told me he had called, twice and that she had called him back at least 5 times, but that they never connected and she hadn't seen him for years. I left work, went to his house and immediately got on his computer. He was up to his old tricks. I was calmer this time even though this betrayal was worse than the first time. When he got home I went calmly biserk. I forced him to call his T right there in front of me; she knew that all hell was breaking loose and agreed to see us that night.
Its now 6 months later and hes going through hell. He goes to counseling every week and we talk - a lot. Im still on alert, but its better. Hes fighting his compulsions to act out but it is a struggle. He admits that to me and although it hurts that he even thinks about it, I accept it as long as his fights it and because I believe with all my heart that his continued therapy and me continuing to stand by him and love him will help him exorcize it from his and our lives.
This is far from the end of the story, but it bring you up to date and answers your question, as least as it happened to one survivor.
Trish
In my relationship, it was both
My b/f was s/a by his mother; he married his high school sweetheart who was also abusive, mostly mentally/emotionally, but she hit him a lot too. As he puts it to me, he had a sex life until he was 13 and was able to put a stop to it then nothing. He got married at 26 or so, thinking he was going to have lots of sex yet didn't go through a box of condoms in 11 years. As a weird side note, he only found out a few months ago that his ex-wife came out as a lesbian. How's that for a kick in the head?While my b/f was married, they spent 8 of their 11 years in counseling. The last counselor was the therapist he sees now. She is the one who picked up on the s/a despite his trying to hide it. Individual counseling took place for him back then, but after the divorce, he stopped.
OK, back on track. After my b/f got divorced, he went through what I call a second adolescence. This is so totally normal. He was single and free to do what he wished with who he wanted whenever he wanted but he didn't know how to meet women, much less approach them for dates and sex was out of the question. First he had too much sex and physical abuse as a child from the one who most should not have ever touched him that way and then he had none from the woman he married.
Enter the internet where every fantasy one can conceive of can be found. My b/f indulged himself in meeting skanky, yet equally as damaged women from all over the state, multiple women at any given time. He lived his non-working night hours in strip clubs where he also met women to have sex with. This went on for years. Enter me, five years ago. We developed what I believed was a fabulous, loving relationship where we were both exclusively with one another. Four years go by and I'm happy as a lark until all hell broke loose in October 2005 when I found out that he'd been continuing his old habits of talking to and meeting other women off the internet for sex the entire time we'd been together. You can imagine the devastation that followed, but it didn't stop there.
A couple of months went by; we got back together, he was just as devastated as I; he resumed counseling, he said. My ability to trust him had been shattered so I was on high alert. Fast forward to February 2006, my woman's intuition, that had failed me for the for the first 4 years of our relationship, kicked me in the ass. I called his therapist, mostly to see if I could get a recommendation for one for myself because he had been laying so much on me. She told me he had called, twice and that she had called him back at least 5 times, but that they never connected and she hadn't seen him for years. I left work, went to his house and immediately got on his computer. He was up to his old tricks. I was calmer this time even though this betrayal was worse than the first time. When he got home I went calmly biserk. I forced him to call his T right there in front of me; she knew that all hell was breaking loose and agreed to see us that night.
Its now 6 months later and hes going through hell. He goes to counseling every week and we talk - a lot. Im still on alert, but its better. Hes fighting his compulsions to act out but it is a struggle. He admits that to me and although it hurts that he even thinks about it, I accept it as long as his fights it and because I believe with all my heart that his continued therapy and me continuing to stand by him and love him will help him exorcize it from his and our lives.
This is far from the end of the story, but it bring you up to date and answers your question, as least as it happened to one survivor.
Trish
This is how it was for my partner. He put a stop to 99% of all the acting out/self destructive stuff before he disclosed to anyone.
However, he kept some papers, email and other things that I found, over a year later, when we were moving to a new house. I confronted him about it and he admitted to the acting out online and to having hidden money from me... not a lot, but at the time we didn't have a lot and it was a big deal. He disclosed the abuse in the aftermath of all that.
I was fed up with a lot of the unhealthy stuff in our relationship and was pretty much ready to go, CSA or no CSA. When I asked him what reassurance I had that things would be any different in the future, he pointed out to me that he had made a lot of changes in the past several months.
Thinking about it objectively, it was actually true. Between the time he stopped acting out and the time I found out about it, he was eating and sleeping better, driving safer, paying his bills on time, spending more time with the kids... I was just too disconnected and worn out from the previous six years to notice anything short of a brand-new guy walking in the door.
At the time he said that he just figured out one day that he didn't like how he was living and wanted to do better for himself. Now, I think that a lot of little things had happened in those months that gave him the self-confidence he needed to take responsibility for the way he was living.