My therapist used the "Groomed" word today (*trigger*)

My therapist used the "Groomed" word today (*trigger*)
E

EGL

Registrant
During our session today my therapist used the "groomed" word, stating that my father's physical and psychological abuse had groomed me such that the later sexual abuse by my brother was easily facilitated. I've felt that for some weeks now, but him saying it had an effect on me. It's like it finally triggered something in me that was simply depressing. In a way I've believed it up till today, but when he said it, it gave it credence, some weight. It's sinking in now, and I feel myself becoming depressed at the thought of it. Groomed. Grrrrrrrrr..... :mad:
 
Groomed. God, there's a word I just fucking hate. When I think about the things that were done to me and my brother that would be considered "grooming," they're disgusting. But even thinking of the acts themselves doesn't piss me off the way that word does.

I think it's because there's some implication that if you're grooming something it means you care about it. If I groom a dog, presumably it's because I care for it not because I'm going to rape it. The collection of psychobabblers who come up with jargon like this ought to go back to the drawing board and come up with another fucking word for it. How about stalking or targetting. More accurate, I think.

Anyway, good for you for mucking through all this stuff. I can certainly understand how tough and unsettling it is.
 
I have to agree. Any therapist who thinks in terms like 'grooming' can't be a very good abuse recovery professional.

I've said it before and it took a long time for me to learn it but not every therapist is a good fit and you deserve a good fit. Its our right to sort of interview therapists until we find the candidate who is the best one for the 'job' we want done.

I like that you noticed the inappropriateness of that term. That's a big positive thing.
 
I have to agree with that one too, "grooming", really is an ugly word, and to hear it so often really irks me no end.

Unfortunately, if you look in a thesaurus though, it really is apt, for what they do, but I still think they could have found a better word.

Just another triggering word, a word I probably will only say with biting my tongue.

Ouch! :eek:
 
Ya, me too.

It's time to rid the word from our vocabulary.

You've come up with a couple, any more suggestions...
I will be bringing this up in private as well as group session. Grooming...give me a break.
They were fucking lusting after me and I thought that it was because they liked me...bullshit, what they wanted and got only hurt and confused the hell out of me.
Soul raped, never groomed.
WE'll never use the fucking word again, OK?

only just a little steamed,

David
 
David,

I get triggered by putting on the TV and seeing the topic is paedophilia, cop soaps, chat shows,family soaps, this one really is bad.

Imagine a kid in an abusive family having to sit through a soap with a paedophile storyline :mad: :mad: :mad:

I know it hurts so much, it is hard to put the TV on sometimes. I remember going downstairs in my house and the TV was on and a pedo was telling how good it was in his sick mind to take away a kids' innocence.

I thought, just spend a day in my mind and see how wrong it is, but wtf would they care?

You are right to bring these "innocent" words up, they can trigger me no end.

Isn't this the problem? That we are abused, we try to get over it, but we are reminded every day, of abuse. We can never get away from the issue, something we cannot ever put away because of the hurt.

Nobody can ever know the depths of hurt we go through, but I agree this word and a lot of other things trigger me.

I really would like these people who make up these words to think, hey who is being affected???

Rape is a noxious word, stalking would be a good fit for "grooming" :mad: :mad: :mad:

People fit words to things without even thinking about the outcome of other peoples' experiences!

take care

ste
 
EGL,

I feel some connection with you on this post. My father's abuse, physical and mental, it also 'groomed' me for the sexual abuse that would follow. Of course, things my mother did also would have set me up for that. Groomed. Hm. Rhymes with 'doomed'. Maybe that is a better word for it. Maybe I was just 'doomed' for the abuse. Okay, enough, I am depressing myself. (((Hug))) if it is ok.

leosha
 
I don't understand exactly what groomed means. Does it mean being prepared? Is it supposed to be positive? I am not sure I was prepared, it hit me suddenly, and my solution was to mentally erase that whole period of my life. If I had been groomed, perhaps I would remember that part of my life? I don't understand if groomed is supposed to be abuse in itself or a coping mechanism created in advance.
 
Being groomed is, I think, being set up so that the sexual abuse gives us the sense that it is because they care about us and that they are our friend and love us. The guilt that comes afterwards is ours because we seem to accept it. At least that is what they tell us they are only giving us what we want. The truth is they dont give a rats ass about us. It is all about them and the power and control they have. It is almost like we get lulled into believing all the shit that happened and their words to us.

Think of the little boy wanting so much to be loved, held and paid attention to. Then think what is the price the perp exacts for that (to them) fals love and caring.

It is like being set up I think to accept it as the price we must pay to be wanted. What a crock of shit. It is a prelude to the assault, a sort of softening up.
 
"Groomed" in the sense that it was used may be a word, like "closure", which I think should be struck from our lexicon.

That said, let me run something by you all that seems to make sense to me in my case (and I'll be curious to see if my theory is borne out in the part of Ken's book re. how the perps pick their prey).

I believe that I was more vulnerable than some to sexual abuse due to earlier abuses of a different sort - namely physical and emotional abuse by a family friend/school teacher. This happened to come, and it went unreported, over a period when my Dad was having what was then called a "nervous breakdown", i.e. major depression - an obvious strain for both Dad and Mom.

These earlier untreated traumas, it seems to me, did not lead directly to my sexual abuse a few years later but their lack of treatment may have made me more vulnerable. Now having just reread that I know that's a 45-year old man talking, and not a 12-year old boy whose "default position" seemed to be to resort to self-blaming.
 
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