Shame, guilt and feeling dirty

Shame, guilt and feeling dirty
M

MB57

Registrant
Thanks for the forum, Since i started on here 6 months back, I have been doing lot of reading , journaling, try to find reason for my failures and pathetic feelings. It has helped a lot. How long i have to do this?

Yester day, after reading some posts or dream something made me think about the night my perp penetrated me after long planning. The feeling of gushing guilt and shame was not tolerable. Could not cry any more. It felt like huge rock on my heart. Pain in the heart was terrible. Dirty, shame worthless thoughts of having some jerk's dick in me was beyond describale.

I could not believe, i did not feel these hiddden emotions for 30 years. I never dealt with them. Could i have replaced this emotions with stupid superstetious beliefs about luck and karma etc.

No i realize how my mind was putting me in to situation all along where i embarass my self in career, relationship etc. I always thought it was luck, punishment by god for the early sex.

Now that after reading about CSA, why do i still feel the shame and make a fool of my self?
How long does stupid mind take to understand and heel?
I do see lot of improvment in my anger control, anxiety, gullable behavior, rebellion nature etc in the past 6 months.
But last night's emotions where scary.Of course i was trying to get them out by bringing the memories back. I should have done this like 30 yrs back.

Do these emotion snow ball to become stronger with the time? I was hoping they go away with time. Like they say time is solution for every thing. Apparently Not.

Thanks guys, i think i bored you guys enough.
 
No; what's happening is that the way your mind feels about what happened is quite terrible, and after 30 years of not thinking about it, I would imagine that sudden terror is very much a shock.

I don't know how old you were when this stuff happened, but you're trying to put your current mind in your younger self, as if you knew back then everything you know now and should've been able to see something coming, or resist.

Kids aren't just short adults, the way movies show them these days. They don't know as much, they don't think the same. There was really absolutely no way you could've seen anything coming, or done anything about it.

When I was 10, my mind was very much a day-to-day machine. I didn't care or understand what sort of consequences would stem from my or another's actions -today- in three weeks, or six months, or five years.

Our perpetrators, moreover, were aware of these weaknesses and in fact counted on them, which is how they were able to exploit us. But you can't kill yourself for not understanding when you were a child, any more than you can blame yourself for being born male - it's something you had no control over.

But now - NOW - we have control; we can think about what happened and apply logic and critical thinking. When we do that, we realize that our perpetrators were such scumbags it's amazing nature allowed them to stay alive. But that doesn't make it any more our fault.
 
MB57,

Please don't beat yourself up for not dealing years ago with what happened to you. As a child you did what you knew how to do in order to cope, and that laid the foundations for how you would react later on. None of this is a matter of your fault; blame goes 100% to those who hurt you.

You refer a lot to emotions, and it is in fact the emotions and feelings that we have to deal with in order to recover. You seem to be thinking a lot in terms of classifying things and sticking them into compartments, which is a classic coping technique for survivors I think. But in fact we have to let these things out, express how we really feel, and admit our fears.

You ask if these feelings snowball with time. I like to compare them to a pot boiling over. The answer isn't to hold the lid down tighter, the answer is to turn down the heat. In order to do that with our feelings we have to admit to ourselves honestly what these feelings are and how they are affecting us.

With CSA I think the old saying that time heals all is false. In this area, neglected and hidden issues just fester; they need to be addressed openly in order for them to heal. But when we do that we also begin to discover new and positive domensions of ourselves that we didn't know we had. The effort is worth it.

Much love,
Larry
 
MB57,
The guilt and the shame are all too familiar to me. It sounds as if you're guilting yourself for "waiting 30 years" to feel what you had to feel. Well, I'm sure you would've felt those feelings voluntarily if you knew then what you know now. You simply weren't ready. These feelings do become more intense when you realize why the feelings are there and what they are doing to you. Larry was right when he said to express them. It can be so hard and frightening. It takes a lot of courage to face them and I have no doubt that you will when you feel the time is right. After opening back up those old wounds, they will eventually decline in time. Be patient. You'll notice when those feelings subside. They won't go away all the sudden but you'll find that they tend to happen less and less and less and become less intense as time goes by through hindsight.
 
Whoops, didn't mean to end it that quick! Anyway, I am the king of embarrassment, believe me. Sometimes when you feel those intense emotions it tends to put your body and mind in a trance causing clumsiness. Try walking into the ladies bathroom. I didn't know whether to feel like a dumbass or to feel like a dirty perv, (like I did it intentionally). Just know that shame is the most deadly of emotions. It is also not necessary. Shame is not the same as guilt and unlike the other emotions, you don't have to feel it to heal. Good luck and god bless you back. Try to look at every little stab in the heart as a part of recovery and you being one step closer to escaping the hell that has been bestowed upon all of us. OH yea, you didn't bore me by the way. If you did then I wouldn't have replied. Stay strong, I'm fighting right along with ya!
 
Thanks a lot for your support. This forum is the best thing that happened to me in my peronal growth.
I used feel guilty, depressed unwanted , low self esteem from last say 20 years on and off. I had no clue why. Used attribute to up brining, luck -- stupid superstitions. Hoping thinks would change with time and luck. I guess that was coping machanism not to feel the pain.

But that has efected my life interms of success and relation/freind ship. I do great job in my field , every one approciates my skills, but they hate my guts at times. I had problems with authority in my life all along. I except the perfection to the core. I terrible people person but not always. I know how to be nice and team sport etc. But I do not do it. Let us say i do not want to be closer to people. I always have this non team player issue at work and home.
I have driven my self away from people at family and relatives and at work i just keep only professional relation ship. It is as if i am afraid to be close to people.

All along i was thinking it is my nature , aggressive parent (my father)and depression because of my initial failure in life. I always felt i am being cheated, my life is unfair, i did not get enough from my life. which fed on it self. I could have been doing lot better in life as i am intellegent and smart in dealing with the issues (techniclal , managerial etc) but one part of me holds me back when it comes to dealing with people. I had no clue why. I just attributed to being unlucky, horoscope etc.. Only recently i started too realise the sexual abuse can play havoc with one's life. It was my guilt, worth lessness was keeping me from succeeding in my career. I throw away all good accomplishments just like that. It had happened at regular intervals like a well defined pattern. Guess what i always blamed luck and god's plan for me. Took it on chin and stood up like pheonix raising from ashes.

I am glad i found this site, started to force my self to feel the abuse by going back in time. At times i even create the situation by forcing my self by seeing gayporn, reading stories. That really helped to get the feelings back and trying to deal with them. My head feels like exploding at times, but i have to do it. I do not want to loose any more in life. Want to make most of what is left in my life.

Abuse has taken so many years from my life.

Forget the past is not always true!!

Thanks lot for all the support and sorry for boring with my blah blah crap.
 
MB57,

Yes, I think all the feelings and issues you mention have at least something to do with abuse - it can all get so complicated. I also think you are spot-on in being determined to look to the future; we have to deal with the past, but unfortunately we can't change it.

One thing I would urge caution on is using gay porn to recreate the situation. What is in those pages is not child abuse, of course, and the emotions and memories brought back to you much be traumatic and painful. Please bro, don't fall into the trap of thinking "pain is gain". By working with a therapist you can make steady and safe progress without being retraumatized.

Much love,
Larry
 
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