Posted by Daisym on May 12, 2006, at 11:41:54
In reply to Re: conflicted feelings about csa ***trigger*** » daisym, posted by Larry Hoover on May 12, 2006, at 9:23:27
I might have talked about it before in these terms but I wanted desperately for therapy and my journey to remembering to be an "after-school special." -- You know: there is a deep, dark secret, it comes out, everyone says they are sorry, the "bad" guy is dead or goes to jail, but that is OK because he was more or less a stranger, and the whole family hugs and healing happens. It is just so much more complicated than that. My dad is still in my life and my family doesn't know. I just left a marriage that was edging towards being abusive. And I think a great deal of this for me is my ego is horribly bruised. I keep bumping up against how the csa effected my choices in life, when I would have sworn on a stack of bibles three years ago that I was totally OK inspite of it. I just didn't let it touch me. Wow, is that not true.
So when I tell the stories, they remind me that this will be with me always. I have to figure out how to have a relationship with it, as my therapist says. And you are right, I still have a long way to go to believe that somehow I didn't cause this. There is a very primitive belief that I'm just "bad" and didn't deserve to be saved. I have on several occasions said to my therapist, "where were you?! Why didn't you stop this?" He always responds that he wishes he was there and he would have stopped it. Those have been the most powerful conversations in breaking apart the belief that it was all my fault. I feel so young and unreasonable about these demands but he is very steady and thinks it is OK to be unreasonable about this. I think the shame and self-doubt are deeply embedded in my core. We've spent a ton of time ripping down the defenses to get to this core and now we are actually dismantling the core. But it is very scary to tell a story without a strong self-center. Again, this is why my therapist "lends" me his, until I'm strong again. And like most women who suffered csa, I am really good at intellectually knowing all kinds of stuff that I really don't believe. Like: I know it is NEVER the child's fault. I know that. I just don't believe that it wasn't, at least in some part, MY fault.
I don't know if this answers your question. It occurs to me often that I should just stop telling the stories if they are so disruptive. But honestly, I can't. It is almost like the floodgates are open and 30 years of holding onto it are pouring forth. So perhaps not immediately cathartic but still necessary to detoxify. Does that make any sense?
poster:Daisym
thread:642647
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060505/msgs/642991.html