Initial excitement of discovery has worn off...
NoSimpleMachine
Registrant
***This post may contain triggers***
Take care and read with caution and self-care...stop if you are feeling triggered
So it's been all of a month or so where I've felt sure that my abuse happened to me. It happened when I was 3 and though I'm unsure of how long it lasted, the memories I've uncovered after the last few years of being fed up with my repeated self-sabotaging, working with counselors, and finally winding up with a Lifetime Integration therapist who really helped me look back far enough in time...no other therapy went so far back in time as he did...has made me sure that it was a complex relationship that offered comfort, fun, and sensuality, but also included the brutal acts of penetrative sex from an adult man in his late 30s grooming, coercing, and exploiting an unaware and trusting toddler. That was 25 years ago.
The initial discovery was so enlightening. I finally had something that tied together all these bizarre threads in my life that flapped chaotically in the wind; now they had a context that offered so much explanation. The sorts of men I had relationships with, the aspects of sex that titillated and scared me, the way those relationships ended similarly, loaded with the emotions I had uncovered as being part of my original abuse...
At first I told a few close friends and I always got the same response: how do you feel about your abuser? I said I don't hate him, I wanted to understand him and give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was abused himself, etc. Well, I'm mad now. I'm mad at him and I'm mad at society. The law in California states that people abused sexually before age 18 must bring charges by their 28th birthday...I uncovered my abuse 2 months after my 28th birthday...a new law extends that to the 40th birthday, but doesn't go into effect until 1/1/2015, 9 months too late to help me. I'm so mad at my abuser I want to scream at him, scream at him about how he exploited a defenseless child for his own pleasure and caused so many knock-on effects in his life, have caused him decades of hurt just so you could wet your dick somewhere, you selfish prick...and I start to in my head but I can't keep it up, I just imagine falling apart...
A discovery that started out as the answer to so many questions is now inciting ten times as many questions. What parts of my dreams, values, turn-ons and turn-offs, positive qualities and negative qualities...what's going to still be there after I have more understanding? What would never have been there if I'd never been abused? How much of my own fucked-upedness have I projected on other people in my life? Who should I tell I'm a CSA survivor now that I know: who do I owe that explanation for my behavior and when should I let sleeping dogs lie?
I'm so sexually blocked now too...in the months leading up to this re-discovery of memory, I was masturbating significantly more than normal (my whole sexually active life I've averaged an orgasm a day basically...for months it spiked to 3 or 4 times a day a lot of the time) to fantasies of submitting sexually to heavy-set men with large penises...basically, reliving my abuse except instead of being small like a toddler, making the men in these fantasies larger, to be "in proportion". With very few exceptions, my sexual experiences over the years have been with men who physically resemble my abuser...heavy set men (often with facial and body hair, usually white but not always). If they had a thick penis, so much the better.
The most recent of these men has been my best friend since I moved to Seattle, and we've been sexual on and off for a couple years (he has a partner, who is someone I also hold quite dear and have been sexual with a couple times, and they share an open relationship and overall are an inspiration for me in terms of being a very caring couple, to each other and to the people around them.) He's the last person I was sexual with for several months before uncovering my abuse because deep in my bones he was the only person I trusted enough to be intimate with...there were other people around who I was interested in, or thought were interested in me, but just couldn't clear that hurdle of getting sexual with them. But this friend, I trusted him, we could be intimate together. And like I said, he's very physically reminiscent of my abuser...my age but white, heavier set, facial hair and that thicker cock that I "like" (or, associate with being penetrated at far too young an age...) We were sexual together until February, and since then have seen him very infrequently, don't really know how to talk to him...he's an incredibly sweet guy who's going through some health problems and I feel bad that I don't know how to support him right now...feel weird because I'm putting his body in my mind and inflating his gut, inflating his genitals, and getting fucked for my own pleasure...except now that fantasy doesn't work for me anymore, I know it's re-living my abuse and my orgasms have become blocked when I attempt to reach them via this fantasy (meaning I have the physical contractions of an orgasm but nothing comes out).
I'm having such a hard time understanding how to approach this person, and it's only 6 weeks until I leave the state and move back home...when I promised to him that I would keep him in the loop about my move home, I guess I felt that my promise was to keep in close contact with him in the meantime too and I'm failing.
I've been spending a lot of time with another friend of mine this year...also gay, a few years younger than me. Kinda drives me crazy in a way that feels healthy to me, like, I get to practice having a boyfriend who doesn't see eye to eye with me all the time, and letting the little stuff go...but without the pressure of a commitment or sex. I've become increasingly nervous that he really loves me, though, and is trying to express it to me in his way...he doesn't know about my CSA and is not a dominant personality at all, but we just went camping together and he's doing stuff like handing me rocks off the beach that look like hearts...built our campfire in the shape of a giant arrow that pointed at where I was sitting, subtle twists of his language...I wonder if I'm making it up, or he's actively hinting at me in a subtle way, or he's subconsciously expressing an attraction.
When we first started hanging out about a year and a half ago I started to lean toward an intimate relationship with him...hung out at his place and would rest my head in his lap on the couch and watched TV...I got so far as subtly rubbing him through his jeans once, wondering if I should unzip him and give him oral...deciding not to. Deciding I wasn't comfortable with that and wasn't in a place to handle the ramifications. Which I think was a healthy decision to make, but it was a huge shift in my paradigm...my CSA grooming taught me that relationships ended when I didn't give sexual pleasure, and I've lived under that assumption my whole life. Now here's a friend who has bucked that trend and I feel split over it...half proud of myself, half deeply ashamed for being selfish and cold. And partly afraid of being an unrequited love to a young man, like the guy I moved up to Seattle to be with in the first place...whose lack of ability to return my affections lead me to a breakdown and suicide attempt. I never want to be that to another human being.
So this post has ended up being a big rambling rundown of my head right now, but it seems like signs point to my feelings toward myself, sex, and intimacy that I learned inappropriately through my CSA and have seen the consequences of in my adult life. After the joy of understanding where so many problems in my life came from, I am now on the brink of getting into more practical applications of this new knowledge. And I'm not sure I know where to start.
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks for reading.
Take care and read with caution and self-care...stop if you are feeling triggered
So it's been all of a month or so where I've felt sure that my abuse happened to me. It happened when I was 3 and though I'm unsure of how long it lasted, the memories I've uncovered after the last few years of being fed up with my repeated self-sabotaging, working with counselors, and finally winding up with a Lifetime Integration therapist who really helped me look back far enough in time...no other therapy went so far back in time as he did...has made me sure that it was a complex relationship that offered comfort, fun, and sensuality, but also included the brutal acts of penetrative sex from an adult man in his late 30s grooming, coercing, and exploiting an unaware and trusting toddler. That was 25 years ago.
The initial discovery was so enlightening. I finally had something that tied together all these bizarre threads in my life that flapped chaotically in the wind; now they had a context that offered so much explanation. The sorts of men I had relationships with, the aspects of sex that titillated and scared me, the way those relationships ended similarly, loaded with the emotions I had uncovered as being part of my original abuse...
At first I told a few close friends and I always got the same response: how do you feel about your abuser? I said I don't hate him, I wanted to understand him and give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was abused himself, etc. Well, I'm mad now. I'm mad at him and I'm mad at society. The law in California states that people abused sexually before age 18 must bring charges by their 28th birthday...I uncovered my abuse 2 months after my 28th birthday...a new law extends that to the 40th birthday, but doesn't go into effect until 1/1/2015, 9 months too late to help me. I'm so mad at my abuser I want to scream at him, scream at him about how he exploited a defenseless child for his own pleasure and caused so many knock-on effects in his life, have caused him decades of hurt just so you could wet your dick somewhere, you selfish prick...and I start to in my head but I can't keep it up, I just imagine falling apart...
A discovery that started out as the answer to so many questions is now inciting ten times as many questions. What parts of my dreams, values, turn-ons and turn-offs, positive qualities and negative qualities...what's going to still be there after I have more understanding? What would never have been there if I'd never been abused? How much of my own fucked-upedness have I projected on other people in my life? Who should I tell I'm a CSA survivor now that I know: who do I owe that explanation for my behavior and when should I let sleeping dogs lie?
I'm so sexually blocked now too...in the months leading up to this re-discovery of memory, I was masturbating significantly more than normal (my whole sexually active life I've averaged an orgasm a day basically...for months it spiked to 3 or 4 times a day a lot of the time) to fantasies of submitting sexually to heavy-set men with large penises...basically, reliving my abuse except instead of being small like a toddler, making the men in these fantasies larger, to be "in proportion". With very few exceptions, my sexual experiences over the years have been with men who physically resemble my abuser...heavy set men (often with facial and body hair, usually white but not always). If they had a thick penis, so much the better.
The most recent of these men has been my best friend since I moved to Seattle, and we've been sexual on and off for a couple years (he has a partner, who is someone I also hold quite dear and have been sexual with a couple times, and they share an open relationship and overall are an inspiration for me in terms of being a very caring couple, to each other and to the people around them.) He's the last person I was sexual with for several months before uncovering my abuse because deep in my bones he was the only person I trusted enough to be intimate with...there were other people around who I was interested in, or thought were interested in me, but just couldn't clear that hurdle of getting sexual with them. But this friend, I trusted him, we could be intimate together. And like I said, he's very physically reminiscent of my abuser...my age but white, heavier set, facial hair and that thicker cock that I "like" (or, associate with being penetrated at far too young an age...) We were sexual together until February, and since then have seen him very infrequently, don't really know how to talk to him...he's an incredibly sweet guy who's going through some health problems and I feel bad that I don't know how to support him right now...feel weird because I'm putting his body in my mind and inflating his gut, inflating his genitals, and getting fucked for my own pleasure...except now that fantasy doesn't work for me anymore, I know it's re-living my abuse and my orgasms have become blocked when I attempt to reach them via this fantasy (meaning I have the physical contractions of an orgasm but nothing comes out).
I'm having such a hard time understanding how to approach this person, and it's only 6 weeks until I leave the state and move back home...when I promised to him that I would keep him in the loop about my move home, I guess I felt that my promise was to keep in close contact with him in the meantime too and I'm failing.
I've been spending a lot of time with another friend of mine this year...also gay, a few years younger than me. Kinda drives me crazy in a way that feels healthy to me, like, I get to practice having a boyfriend who doesn't see eye to eye with me all the time, and letting the little stuff go...but without the pressure of a commitment or sex. I've become increasingly nervous that he really loves me, though, and is trying to express it to me in his way...he doesn't know about my CSA and is not a dominant personality at all, but we just went camping together and he's doing stuff like handing me rocks off the beach that look like hearts...built our campfire in the shape of a giant arrow that pointed at where I was sitting, subtle twists of his language...I wonder if I'm making it up, or he's actively hinting at me in a subtle way, or he's subconsciously expressing an attraction.
When we first started hanging out about a year and a half ago I started to lean toward an intimate relationship with him...hung out at his place and would rest my head in his lap on the couch and watched TV...I got so far as subtly rubbing him through his jeans once, wondering if I should unzip him and give him oral...deciding not to. Deciding I wasn't comfortable with that and wasn't in a place to handle the ramifications. Which I think was a healthy decision to make, but it was a huge shift in my paradigm...my CSA grooming taught me that relationships ended when I didn't give sexual pleasure, and I've lived under that assumption my whole life. Now here's a friend who has bucked that trend and I feel split over it...half proud of myself, half deeply ashamed for being selfish and cold. And partly afraid of being an unrequited love to a young man, like the guy I moved up to Seattle to be with in the first place...whose lack of ability to return my affections lead me to a breakdown and suicide attempt. I never want to be that to another human being.
So this post has ended up being a big rambling rundown of my head right now, but it seems like signs point to my feelings toward myself, sex, and intimacy that I learned inappropriately through my CSA and have seen the consequences of in my adult life. After the joy of understanding where so many problems in my life came from, I am now on the brink of getting into more practical applications of this new knowledge. And I'm not sure I know where to start.
Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks for reading.
